


Inretus

by cptnjtk



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, It's all part of crime scenes though, M/M, Murder, Nothing explicit, Prisoner Hannibal Lecter, Silence of the Lambs References, Slow Burn, Student Will Graham
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-06-14
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:40:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24345916
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cptnjtk/pseuds/cptnjtk
Summary: Willl Graham is a trainee at the Academy. In order to pass his course, Will must interview a convicted criminal over the course of several weeks and write up a profile on them.It's just Will's luck that he's assigned none other than the Chesapeake Ripper himself, Dr. Hannibal Lecter.
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 94
Kudos: 435





	1. Chapter 1

At twenty one years old, Will Graham was the youngest trainee ever admitted to the Academy since the Bureau's formation in 1908. His age was one of the many aspects of Will Graham that made the man a popular topic of conversation within the halls of the Acadamy. Combined with his razor-sharp intelligence and quick wit, Will Graham was something of an anomaly to other trainees and even staff.

Gifted from a young age, Will was able to quickly advance through his education despite the constant moving around from city to city. He was diligent and conscientious, just like his hard-working father, whose work ethic had been drilled into Will from before he could walk on his own two feet. His hard work paid off in the end when he was offered a position at the Academy after completing a fast-tracked bachelor's degree online while he worked on the police force back in New Orleans. 

Any concerns or doubts about Will's age, however, were quickly dispelled by the man himself. What he lacked in experience, he more than made up for in razor-sharp intelligence - Will powered through his courses faster than anyone else in his classes, particularly his Criminal Profiling course. While he would prefer not to draw any (further) attention to himself, Will often found himself on the recieving end of Professor Matthieu's neverending stream of questions, the older man seeking Will's insight on both old and cold cases. 

"Excellent, Mr. Graham!" Professor Matthieu's accented voice echoed around the lecture theatre and reverberated back to Will, who offered the man a feeble smile that looked more like a grimace. "A superb analysis, I must say."

Sinking further into his seat and ignoring all of the eyes aimed in his direction, Will pretended to scribble down notes in his book and hoped that the lecturer wouldn't draw any further attention to him. He sat tense the rest of the class, kept his head down, and speaking occassionally with the girl next to him - a friendly young woman by the name of Savannah, with whom he had sat beside during orientation and continued to do so the weeks following. 

"Now, if you enjoy delving into the infinite unknowns of the criminal mind just as much as I," Professor Matthieu continued, earning him a quiet ripple of laughter through the theatre from his students, "well, your new assignment is exciting."

Professor Matthieu circled around his desk before he took his seat at the centre of the room, gazing at all of them with an animated glint in his grey eyes. It was unfamiliar to see the older man take his seat - Matthieu was known at the Academy for his lively and energetic classes, constantly on his feet and speaking with spirited gestures, his heavy French accent full of passion. To see him willingly sit at his desk was enough to spark curious murmurs that echoed all throughout the class. 

His glasses, the lenses large and encased in a thin gold frame, were deliberately nudged further up along the bridge of his nose and he cleared his throat, putting an effective stopper on any sound in the room. With a wrinkled hand, he held up a manila file to display to the whole theatre. "This assignment is new to the course. You will all be the first trainees at the Academy to ever attempt it. Consider it a trial - if it proves successful, then the next trainees to walk through these doors and sit where you are sitting now will also complete it."

Suddenly, Matthieu disappeared under his desk, his movements spry, and he was up on his feet as quick as he had disappeared. He stood, weighed down by the large stack of identical manila folders in his arms, and smiled, bearing his teeth. He walked across the room and placed the stack on the desk of a fellow trainee that Will vaguely recognised. 

"Eoin, if you wouldn't mind passing these out. Just take one and pass it along." The young man in question merely nodded, grabbing one for himself before he shoved the stack to his neighbour. 

"Your assignment is to write up a criminal profile." Matthieu announced, slowly strolling around the theatre. "However, this assignment is different in that you will be interviewing actual criminals. In these files, you will find the name of the individual that you will be interviewing." Files were being passed around much quicker, students eager as they flipped open the file and scanned it's content with an almost feverish look in their eyes. "Some individuals are former criminals that we reached out to, most are former criminals that reached out to us to get involved in the programme. Arsonist Elliot Keynes is among them. For those of you who do not know, Mister Keynes is now the leader of a large-scale project based in Georgia, a rehabilitation programme working with young inmates and at-risk youth. In his youth, Mister Keynes was a serial arsonist who caused over ten million in damages. Now, he has reached out to work with us." 

Matthieu's face took on a more grim look as he sat down on his desk, eyes following the trail of files being passed around. His eyes paused on Will as the young man took his folder and passed the smaller stack of files behind him. Will left the file unopened in front of him and ignored the minute gaze being directed at him. "However, among these files are also notorious criminals. Criminals that have been locked up for their own good and for the good of society. They are dangerous but were willing to take part in the programme."

Matthieu continued speaking, telling them all the relevant details for the assignment. Will looked down at the plain file on his desk, though he lacked the interest of his classmates. Social interaction wasn't a strength of his - not necessarily a weakness, however, Will could be social when the need arose - but an interview with a convicted criminal was far beyond his willingness to engage in social interaction. Especially when said interaction could be avoided. Will was clever - he would read the case file, perhaps research a few of the cases, watch any online interviews that might be available, and would submit a profile of the individual. Profiling came like a second nature to him, which was why he breezed through the Criminal Profiling course with such ease - he could undoubtedly write a lengthier and much more detailed profile by simply seeing the individual's picture than his classmates could write in their entire report. 

With a small sigh through his nose, Will flipped open the file, filtering out Matthieu's lecture and immersing himself in the file. However, he felt something like lead settle in his stomach and a bitter taste at the back of his throat as he read the name of his new study.

_Hannibal Lecter_

The name was printed in plain black, in a Times New Roman font. Will knew of him. Everyone knew of him. Hannibal Lecter. The Chesapeake Ripper. Will purposely avoided the black and white mugshot of the infamous man, eyes flying across the details of his file and taking as much in as he possibly could.

_Name: Hannibal Lecter_  
_Birthday: 20/01/1965 (aged 45)_  
_Ethnicity: White_  
_Sex: Male_  
_Height: 6' 0"_  
_Weight: 180 lbs_  
_Hair: Dark blonde_  
_Eyes: Maroon/brown_  
_Status: Incarcerated at the BSHCI_  
_Known aliases: The Chesapeake Ripper, Hannibal the Cannibal_

None of it was very intriguing to Will and so he skipped several pages to find the information he sought. Page after page detailed Lecter's crimes, from psychological manipulation to torture to murder to cannibalism. Will flicked through the file, none of it earning his actual interest. He remembered hearing about Lecter's arrest on the radio five years ago, however, his father had quickly changed the station to an old classic rock station. He had never truly given the man another thought from that day. Closing the file, Will decided that he would read over it at a later date, read every detail of this man's crimes, pore over every little facet of his criminal career and create an entire profile based on nothing but ink on paper. Professor Matthieu, while an excellent profiler and an exceptionally intelligent man, would be none the wiser about Will's deception. 

When the class was dismissed, Will followed Savannah out into the halls of the Academy. It was only when she bid her final farewell to a few of the girls from the class that Will truly tuned into her while they walked. 

"It's still pretty early. Do you want to get a bite to eat?" Savannah asked him as they walked out the front doors, narrowly avoiding be bumped into by the throng of students apparently attempting to all push through the front doors at once. Savannah checked her watch and nodded to herself, "the Hummingbird Bistro will be serving breakfast for another two hours." 

"I could eat." Will replied.

They made a quick stop at Savannah's dorm to drop off their belongings before their next class. The walk to the Hummingbird was quiet, which suited both of them. Savannah was friendly and social but she was never overly talkative. Never felt the need to fill the silence with forced conversation. Will could tell that she, much like himself, enjoyed the company of very few people - the confident manner in which she spoke to strangers and classmates betrayed by the stiffness in her spine and the tightness of her shoulders. It had been something that Will, and he suspected himself alone, had picked up on almost immediately upon meeting her that first day all those weeks ago. She hid her discomfort well behind words that sought to comfort, laughter that usually faded after everyone else's, and a smile that could dim the sun. That didn't mean to say that behind closed doors she was a monster, no, what Will saw in her was something much more gut-wrenching. He saw a girl that was kind to everyone, giving back to others what she had never recieved, comforting them with gentle words and a sympathetic ear. A girl that laughed until she could no longer, heaving gasps and red cheeks and eyes that sparkled with unshed tears of joy, perhaps trying to make up for the lack of laughter she heard in her own childhood. And her smile - dark lips stretching over pearly white teeth and bunched up cheeks - looked out of place on her face, unused to the muscles pulling in different directions.

However, when it was just the two of them - whether they were holed up in the library poring over textbook after textbook or having a meal in between lectures - her entire being shifted. Her shoulders loosened, her spine relaxing as he took her seat on the opposite side of their booth. Her smile was smaller, still radiant, her laughter quiet like the tinkle of wind chimes when it was just Will. These thoughts ran through his mind as he watched her read the menu. The sun shone through the window, framing her in it's golden beam. Savannah's eyes, usually a brown so dark it was almost onyx, looked like pools of dark caramel in the sunlight. 

Will wondered what he would see if he were to look into the Ripper's eyes.

"Are you ready to order?" A sharp, nasal voice snapped Will out of mind's wandering. Standing above them was an older woman, plump with a head of red curls and bright red lipstick. Her name tag read Peggy. He cleared his throat and ordered the first thing he saw on the menu, a protein scramble, and a coffee. After Savannah ordered, they handed their menus back to their server and watched her make her way back to the kitchen. 

"So, who did you get for Matthieu's assignment?" Savannah asked once Peggy was out of sight, turning back to face Will. "I got Harry Colotte."

"The robber from Columbia." Will Graham supplied and she nodded. 

"I have to go down to South Carolina to interview him." Savannah explained, looking none too pleased about it. "What about you, Will? Who are you profiling?"

Will's answer stopped on the tip of his tongue. Savannah's profile would be rather straightforward. Harry Colotte had almost gotten away with what would have been South Carolina's biggest armed robbery. Hannibal Lecter, on the other hand, killed and ate countless individuals, twisted their bodies in unnatural positions to make artwork out of them for all to see. Savannah raised a waiting eyebrow.

"Hannibal Lecter." 

Savannah's eyes widened of their own accord. Born and raised in Maryland, she no doubt knew more about Lecter than Will did. She recovered quickly and swallowed heavily. 

"Hannibal Lecter?" She repeated, trying to gauge how Will felt about this. Will shrugged, crossing his arms on the table and leaning on them. She imitated his shrug with a hint of hysteria and a shake of her head, a disbelieving smile adorning her features. "Only you, Will Graham, would shrug like that when faced with interviewing the most notorious serial killer in America." 

Will couldn't help but shrug again, a helpless and resigned 'what can you do' expression settling on his face. "I don't think I'll interview him. I'll just read about him and write up his profile."

Savannah's concern didn't dissipate like Will had hoped it would, her face instead taking on a more nuanced expression of concern. "Matthieu will mark your assignment as incomplete. You'll fail the course, Will."

Will heaved a sigh. "I'll think about it. Maybe I'll change my mind. I don't know. I'd rather not think about it at the moment." 

"Just be careful, Will." Savannah wanred as their food arrived, putting an end to their conversation.

They ate in relative silence - the way they usually did - however, Savannah's words had Will thinking back to the manila file that was currently lying on Savannah's bed where he had dumped it. 

He pictured the look on her face when he had told her, the widened eyes and the parted lips that had allowed a quiet gasp to escape from her throat. All because of a single man's name. Hannibal Lecter, Will repeated the name in his mind, a feeling that he couldn't shake settled under his skin, like spiders crawling under his flesh, and Savannah's warning echoed in his mind. 

What was so interesting about Hannibal Lecter? 

  
-

  
The dim glow from Will's bedside lamp was the only source of light in his otherwise dark dorm room. Will's roommate, a twenty three year old man named James that Will rarely interacted with, was fast asleep in his own bed, snoring quietly into his pillow. James was a good roommate in Will's view - he didn't use all the hot water in the morning, didn't bring anyone back to their dorm room, and kept his side of the room tidy. He probably wouldn't have minded if Will switched from his bedside lamp to the main light but Will himself was too caught up in tearing through page after page of Lecter's file. 

Will had arrived home feeling tired and the beginnings of a headache. He had showered, popped two aspirin dry, and collapsed onto his bed in the hopes that sleep would take him. It did not. Instead, he had twisted and turned on his sheets until he could no longer stand it and had snatched Lecter's file from his bedside table.

Now, glowing red numbers indicated that it was nearing two in the morning. Will had been reading Lecter's case for hours, completely ensnared by the man's profile. 

It was... infuriating, Will thought was the best word to describe it. Lecter had no pattern in his victims, no standardized method of killing, and even more confusing - no motive. Will couldn't wrap his head around the enigma of a man. Will had read every word offered to him in his file, examined every picture of his crimes, had scrutinized Hannibal's own mugshot and was endlessly frustrated. He was good at profiling, great in fact, so why was Lecter such an anomaly? Will could not connect the man with his crimes, could not figure out why he did what he did, what his motives were, his views, his thoughts. Even in Will's mind Lecter appeared grainy like his photograph, black and white like an old movie reel, shrouded by darkness and silence, sitting on an unreachable pedestal in Will's mind.

Will reached the end of the file, his mind working a million miles a minute trying to find something - _anything_. The file was thrown to the side in favour of Will's phone and he feverishly read anything and everything that came up. 

The sun had begun to filter into the room through the gap in the curtains by the time Will fell asleep. The file lay abandoned on the bed, pages strewn over the duvet, and his phone lay in his hand, unlocked, with his call history on display. 

Will's most recent call, made at 6:57 AM, was to the Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane.


	2. Chapter 2

It was a rather unassuming building, Will thought as he stood outside the Baltimore State Hospital for Criminally Insane. Had it not been for the large sign anouncing it's purpose, he doubted anyone would make the assumption that the building housed some of America's most deranged and notorious criminals. 

With a calming breath, Will forced himself to walk through the wooden doors, large enough that they were almost intimidating. He was greeted by a sizeable reception hall that was decorated rather lavishly for a prison. Behind a wide mahogany desk sat a bored looking woman, who was typing away on her computer and continued to do so even after Will stood before her. He cleared his throat, file held tightly between his fingers. 

The woman looked up at him, a name tag informing him that her name was Linda. She had bleach blonde hair that fell to her chin, curls stiffened by hairspray unfurled around her cheeks. Her make-up was light and she raised a perfectly drawn eyebrow at him. 

"My name is Will Graham. I'm a trainee at the Academy. I called earlier this week to arrange an interview with Hannibal Lecter." Will explained, setting his file down on the desk and searching his pockets for his ID. After a moment of blind reaching, he pulled out the small plastic card and offered it to her. 

She took it without comment, eyes flicking over it momentarily. Her gaze flicked back up to him and she gave a single nod, handing the card back over. Will pocketed it quickly and picked up his file again. 

"You'll be meeting with Dr. Chilton first. He will walk you through the rules while speaking with Dr. Lecter." Linda informed him as she picked up the phone beside her computer and held it to her ear. It rang three times before Will heard a murmured reply on the other line. 

"Will Graham here to see Hannibal Lecter." Was all Linda said before he she set down the reciever and automatically went back to typing on her computer. "Take a seat. Dr. Chilton will be along in a moment." 

Will nodded, gathering his belongings and taking a seat on the nearest couch. He had just about made himself as comfortable as he could given the situation before there was a loud klaxon-like alarm that blared once, accompanied by the light above a nearby door flashing green, followed by a man entering the reception. 

His eyes zeroed in on Will immediately, a smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth. Dr. Chilton, Will assumed, carried himself with as much dignity as he could apparently muster. He sauntered into the room, making a beeline for Will. His suit was of a fine quality, a dark grey with a blue and white pinstripe shirt and complete with a periwinkle tie.

"Mr. Graham." Chilton greeted him. His voice sounded oily. The doctor did not offer Will his hand as the younger man stood. 

"Dr. Chilton." Will nodded in greeting. He too did not offer his hand. There was a tense second as they assessed one another. Chilton's smirk grew as he took in Will's scruffy appearance - his unkempt mess of curls, his three-day old stubble, and his shabby clothing. 

"Please, follow me." He gestured for Will to follow along, which he did. He chanced one last look at Linda, who was watching him with amused eyes. Her eyes flicked to Chilton's retreating back and then back to Will's and she raised her eyebrow at him once more, a smile twitching at the corners of her mouth. Will stifled a smile as she returned to her work. Clearly, Dr. Chilton was not as popular with his staff as he was led to believe.

"Hannibal Lecter is our most secured prisoner." Chilton began as they walked down a long corridor, the end goal a large door at the very end. Staff were bustling around them, arms laden with files and medical equipment, trolleys rattling as they were pushed along the corridor. "The rules I am about to explain to you are for your own safety. Do not deviate from them for any reason whatsoever. Do you understand, Mr. Graham?"

"Yes, sir." Will nodded his assent as he followed Chilton into his office and took a seat opposite from him at his desk.

"Very well." Chilton steepled his fingers and rested his head chin where they joined, head tilted ever so slightly as he gazed at Will. "Do not touch or approach the glass. You pass him nothing but soft paper. No pencils or pens. No staples or paperclips in his paper. Use the sliding food carrier. If he attempts to pass you anything, do not accept it."

His words were practised, rehearsed. They flowed easily from the doctor's lips. He warned everyone that came visit Lecter with the same words, Will knew, repeated them like a mantra to every psychiatrist or otherwise that had ever stepped foot through those front doors. Will ignored the shiver that shot up his spine and the prickling of his skin.

"Do you understand me?" Chilton asked slowly as if speaking to a child.

"Yes, I understand, sir." Will replied blankly, not appreciative of Chilton's treatment of him. He was young, not stupid. Chilton's smile faltered for a second at Will's tone before it came back stronger than before. 

"Very good, Mr. Graham." Chilton said. Will could sense the man's interest in him. Why was Will, a young FBI trainee, so calm when he was about to meet America's most wanted criminal? It confused him, Will knew, Chilton wanted him to be afraid. He took pride in his patients, a perverted and twisted pride in being _the_ person in charge of such dangerously unique monsters. It explained a lot about him, Will thought - his own arrogance would be his ultimate downfall.

"You're to tell him nothing personal. Believe me, you don't want Hannibal Lecter inside your head." Chilton continued as if Will hadn't spoke, although his tone was a touch sharper than before, "Just do your job, but never forget what he is."

"And what is that, Dr. Chilton?" Will couldn't help the words that escaped his throat, his own curiousity getting the best of him. The file in his hand had dents on it's biege cover from where he held it tightly between his fingers, just out of Chilton's sight under the desk. 

"Well that's what makes him so special, isn't it, Mr. Graham?" Chilton's smiled morphed into something sickeningly sweet, so hubristic and pompous that it made Will's fingers twitch in his lap. "No one is really quite sure what Hannibal Lecter is, are they?"

"Are you?" Will challenged him, raising an eyebrow at him.

Chilton's smile turned stony and Will felt a small degree of satisfaction that he hid well from the man. 

"Oh, he's a monster. A pure psychopath. So rare to capture one alive. From a research point of view, Lecter is our most prized asset." 

Will's fingers twitched again. 

"Can I see Dr. Lecter now, sir?" He asked, polite tone sounding strained. Will wanted out of this man's presence as soon as possible.

"Of course." Chilton replied after a moment's consideration, standing from his desk and gesturing for Will to follow him. He did - they passed back down along the corridor, passed Linda in reception once more, and made their way into a different corridor. This one was quieter, halls almost silent as Will followed the doctor. They reached the end of it and entered a room, occupied by a tall, dark skinned man. He stood from his desk when they entered, hands fluttering to the keys hanging from his utility belt. 

"This is Barney Matthews." Chilton greeted them. Barney stuck out a hand to greet Will, which he took to briefly shake. "Barney, this is Will Graham."

"Mr. Matthews." Will nodded pleasantly. 

"Please, call me Barney." Barney offered with a smile. A gentle giant, Will concluded, Barney's posture was on the defence but kind, comforting. He was good at his job. Confident. No accidents had ever occurred on his watch. 

"Call me Will." Will imitated with an attempted smile. 

"Barney is the Head Orderly of our maximum security wing." Chilton explained to Will after watching the exchange, "he is also Hannibal Lecter's primary handler." Chilton's gaze fell between the two of them, eyes narrowed. "I will make my leave. Barney will look after you from here." 

"Thank you, Dr. Chilton." Will replied, grateful as he watched the man leave the room without a glance back at him.

Will waited until the door was closed before he turned to Barney expectantly, file held tightly to his chest. 

"Here, I'll take your coat if you'd like." Barney offered, holding out a hand for it.

"Oh, yes, thank you." Will nodded, setting his file down to hurriedly shrug out of the dark green jacket and passing it to the orderly. 

"Dr. Chilton explained all of the rules to you, yes?" Barney asked as he hung up the coat on a nearby rack. 

"Yes, he did." Will nodded, watching as Barney fiddled with the keys on his hip.

"Good," Barney gave a single nod as he pushed the key into the slot and turned it, "as long as you're polite, Dr. Lecter shouldn't give you any trouble. He despises rudeness." 

Will felt another shiver run up his spine at the words.

That same klaxon-like alarm blared above the door before Will heard a click and it swung open to reveal a long corridor. It smelled of disinfectant.

"He's at the very end of the corridor, last cell." Barney explained, pointing Will in the direction. "I've put a chair out for you. If you want out, just press the button left of the door and I'll let you right out." 

"Okay, thank you." Will replied gratefully as he took the first step past the threshold. He stood still as the door closed behind him, locking with a satisfying click. There were ten cells in the room, five on each side of the corridor. The corridor was completely devoid of anything - with the exception of one wooden chair sitting on it's own at the very end of the corridor. Will could hear mumbling from within the cells, could see white knuckles wrapped around steel bars. He stared straight ahead and took another step along the corridor as silently as he could, unwilling to draw the attention of the inmates just yet. 

Hannibal Lecter was waiting for him at the bottom of the corridor. The Hannibal Lecter that had occupied Will's thoughts all week, the man that made no sense. In Will's mind he remained on that same untouchable pedestal, surrounded by a crushing silence, clouded by darkness. Will had read everything he could get his hands on - textbooks, newspaper articles, interviews, psychiatric journals. Everything. And yet Hannibal Lecter remained an untold mystery to Will. 

With a look of determination, Will walked down the corridor slowly, filtering out everything except the one cell at the bottom of the corridor. Ignored the whistles from inmates and the lewd suggestions spat through the bars of their cells. He could feel them, their desire for freedom. Will forced down a shudder as thoughts that weren't his own began to occupy his mind. Women covered in dirt and blood with bruises knees and broken fingernails. Children crying, cheeks raw and stained with tears. Men running as fast as their feet would allow, tripping over their own terror in their haste to get away. 

By the time Will reached the wooden chair, he let out a shaky breath and clutched the headrest so tight his own knuckles turned white. He felt nauseous, blood pumping through his veins and his heart hammering away at his ribcage. He dropped into the chair, rubbing his eyes with the palms of his hands until he saw stars. Heaving a trembling breath, he sat up straighter in his chair and froze.

Everything seemed to slow down around, the calls from the other inamtes drowned out by a deafening silence that fell on Will's ears as he gazed at the man he had come to be so ensnared by in the last week. 

Hannibal Lecter stared at him through the glass partition that separated them, standing tall. He was six feet tall, Will recalled from his file, and yet here he looked so much taller, so much more intimidating than he had any right to be given that _he_ was the one locked up. He hadn't changed much from the mugshot taken just over five years ago. He was tan - his hands, neck and face sunkissed bronze. His body was lean but sturdy, jumpsuit covering what Will suspected was a well-looked after and muscular body. His hair was shorter than his mugshot, a prison-standard cropped length. It suited his face, which was sculpted by sharp cheekbones and thin lips. Will avoided looking directly into his eyes. Hannibal didn't move, standing still as a statue, didn't blink once while Will had momentarily assessed him. He remained solid, an impenetrable barrier surrounding him.

It was all Will could see. 

He wanted to scream. 

"Dr. Lecter." Will greeted, voice sounding steadier than he felt. "I'm Will Graham. I'm a trainee at the Academy and I'm here to interview you for a psychological profile." Barney's words floated into Will's mind, about Lecter's contempt for rudeness, and he added as an afterthought, "thank you for your time."

The man's entire demeanour changed, the growing smile on his face revealing as a set of sharp, crooked teeth. It was not a kind smile. Will felt the familiar itching under his flesh at the sight of them but forced himself not to give anything away. The man hadn't even said a word and he was already getting under Will's skin. That was perhaps the last thing Will needed him to know.

"A pleasure, Mr. Graham." Hannibal replied, his accent light as he gave Will a courteous nod, hands folding neatly behind his back.

Will let his gaze drift back down to his file and he opened it up, taking out a sheet of paper full of suggested questions. "If it's okay with you, I'd like to start." Will kept his eyes trained on the first question:

_Do you have any regrets?_

Will frowned and chose to ignore it, settling on the next one. _What were your thoughts before, during, and after committing your crimes?_ He sighed through his nose. 

"Not fond of eye contact, are you, Mr. Graham?" Hannibal's quiet voice snapped Will out of his internal ramblings, sounding rather amused.

"No." Will replied curtly, readjusting his grip on the paper. The questions were not the best, lacked the depth and prodding that would produce good answers, _real_ answers, answers Will so desperately wanted to hear. Anything, any piece of information that Will could fit into the puzzle that was Hannibal Lecter. He snapped the file shut and looked up at Hannibal, eyes settling just above his right eyebrow. "Eyes," he sighed, trying to summon the right words, "eyes see too much, see to little. And honestly? I would rather not see at all."

"When you look at me, Mr. Graham, tell me: what do you see?" Hannibal whispered, tone almost mocking as he took a slow step closer to the glass partition. 

"I'm afraid I can't tell you that, Dr. Lecter." Will replied just as quietly, imitating the man's tone, leaning forward ever so slightly. "Dr. Chilton made me promise." 

That same unpleasant smile took over Hannibal's face before he took a step back into the shadows. "Well, then, William, aren't you a very good boy?"

Will felt a flush creep up his neck at the use of his given name and did his best to ignore it, hoping that Hannibal didn't notice. The man's smile took on a wicked appearance as he watched Will purposefully avoid his eyes. Perhaps meeting the man was a mistake

Clearing his throat, Will opened up his file again and read the first. "Do you have any regrets?"

Hannibal was silent for several moments but Will didn't dare look up from his file, not even when he heard Hannibal's footsteps of the creaking of a chair. 

"Getting caught, I suppose." 

The answer caught Will off gaurd and he failed to stifle the quiet laugh that escaped his throat. He slapped a hand over his mouth, eyes glued to the page before him. Hannibal was silent again and the creeping tension of the quietness eventually forced Will to look up at him.

Hannibal was watching him with a curious look in his eyes, mouth drawn in a flat line, and head tilted ever so slightly to the left.

"What were your thoughts before, during, and after committing your crimes?" Will asked, quickly glancing back down at his file. 

"Well, before I thought about how I was going to kill them, during I was thinking about how I was killing them, and after I thought about how I had killed them." Hannibal answered, his tone amused, and Will felt a twitch of irritation. 

"Are you going to take this seriously?" Will snapped, slamming his file down onto his lap. "You were the one that _volunteered_ , Dr. Lecter." 

"Believe me, Mr. Graham, my participation in this little exercise was not voluntary." Hannibal replied airily, examining his nails

"Well maybe if you had mentioned that earlier then neither of us would be here right now." Will snapped and couldn't find it in himself to regret it. Without a car, he had been forced to take a four hour train from Virginia to Baltimore just to visit Lecter, only for the man to refuse to take the whole exercise seriously. 

"Au contraire, Mr. Graham," Hannibal replied, although he didn't sound annoyed, "I would most definitely still be here."

Once again, Will couldn't help the surprised laughter that bubbled up his throat. He knew from his file that Lecter was charming, but experiencing it first-hand was a different matter. It was maddening however, Will thought, the way the man spoke, interacted with others - how could someone do what he did and still have that sane charming aura?

"I'm sorry," Will said, trying to stop his lips from twitching at the corners, "that was insensitive."

Hannibal merely shook his head as if to say 'all is forgiven'. Will felt himself breathe out tension he wasn't even aware of. "I am interested, however, as to why you do not wish to be here, Mr. Graham. Many psychiatrists and FBI agents would give an arm and a leg to sit where you are currently sitting."

"And I'm sure you would serve it right back to them with a side of braised parsnips and a nice glass of lambrusco." Will replied flatly, surprised when it earned him a quiet chuckle from Hannibal. It was a deep sound, hypnotic as it reached Will's ears. 

"It seems that you are more fascinating than I initially believed, Will." Hannibal said and Will felt himself blush again at the use of his name. Hannibal had most definitely picked up on it the first time if his delighted smirk was anything to go by. "Perhaps your company will be more enjoyable than I expected."

The last thing Will needed was to become the subject of interest of a cannibalistic mass murderer. 

"Well, don't get used to it," Will warned, staring down at the paper in his hands so long that words began to blur, "I don't plan on sticking around for long."

"Oh? And why not?" Hannibal asked, quirking an eyebrow at him.

"I don't find you that interesting." Will lied.

The deafening silence that fell between them was disturbed by the scraping of Hannibal's chair on the floor and quiet, almost silent, footsteps. Just over the top of the page, Will could see where Hannibal had come to a stop. His presence was so dominating, occupying all of Will's senses until he felt like he was drowning in darkness. He was itching to reach out, to touch, to _see_. 

With a deep breath, Will looked up to meet his eyes. They were a deep maroon with flecks of brown and gold, and so, so utterly captivating. Will felt the familiar shiver in along his spine, unable to look away from the man's eyes, breath caught in his throat. Whatever Hannibal saw in Will he seemed to like and his mouth shaped itself into a small, deadly smile.

"You will." 

Yes, Will thought, he will.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think that's the fastest I've ever written another chapter lmao but I'm just v excited about this fic :)
> 
> Hope you guys enjoyed!


	3. Chapter 3

The library was silent with the exception of pens scratching against paper and fingers tapping rapidly against keyboards, and the occasional turning of a page. It was just after six in the evening and Will was hunched over yet another book, flipping through it's pages as fast as he could before throwing it to the side, where it joined a mounting pile of other discarded books and journals.

With a stifled yawn and a sip of his lukewarm coffee, Will opened another book and began to peruse its contents. Pages upon pages of messy notes were scattered across the large desk, Will's writing having descended to little more than chicken scratch at that point. He had spent the last few hours scribbling down passages from textbooks, ranging from academic textbooks such as _The Anatomy of Evil_ to philosophy pieces such as _Beyond Good and Evil_. Anything, Will pleaded silently, that would explain just what Hannibal Lecter really was. 

His interview with the man hadn't proved completely fruitless, at least not to Hannibal, Will thought. Admittedly, he refused to answer any of the suggested questions seriously - instead he prodded Will with personal questions that the younger man avoided. However, Hannibal seemed to delight in Will's refusal. Will thought that perhaps he saw it as a challenge, wanted to see how far he could push the awkward, twitchy little student before he broke. 

Fortunately for himself, Will wrapped up the interview faster than he had planned and had hightailed it back to Virginia immediately after, forcing himself not to think about Hannibal the entire train ride home. Instead, he had watched the rain thunder down against the window as the hillsides and greenery sped by. 

However, he hadn't escaped entirely unscathed. Hannibal Lecter seemed to occupy his every waking thought as well as his dreams. Will could see him now in his mind's eyes, an almost perfect replica of the man he had visited at the Baltimore State Hospital. At night Will would twist and turn in his bed, hands clenched around white sheets and tearing them off his body as he dreamed of blood and bones. His most recent dream had been a shock to his system - he awoke drenched in a cold sweat and gasping for air. 

Hannibal had been there, sitting on that same unreachable pedestal, watching him with that same terrifying smile. Will had wanted to reach out to him, to grab him and shake him until his teeth rattled in his skull and demand to know who he was. But he was unreachable, out of Will's touch, beyond his sight, his understanding. It frustrated him to no end - perhaps what frustrated him more, however, was his own interest in Hannibal Lecter. He could leave him be, never interact with the man again, could live his life without ever thinking of the him again. But he wanted to know about him, _needed_ to _see_ him.

"Will Graham?" 

The soft voice drew Will out of his studying. Blinking rapidly, he looked up to see a woman standing above him. She looked to be in her early thirties. Her skin was pale, cheeks flushed a rosy pink, and soft black hair fell to hair shoulders. She offered him a friendly smile that didn't match her eyes, which gazed upon him almost pitifully from where she stood above him. Will recognised her as Dr. Alana Bloom - a guest lecturer for psychiatry in the Academy. 

"Dr. Bloom," Will greeted, his tone coloured with confusion. While he had seen the woman around campus, he had never actually interacted with her until that moment. In fact, he was surprised she even knew his name. 

"Do you mind if I sit?" Alana asked, gesturing to the seat facing him.

"Uh, sure, sure, let me just -" Will stammered, attempting to lift a stack of paper in order to give her space to sit. The papers toppled over, spilling all over the desk and nearby floor, loose sheets scattered everywhere. "Sorry, sorry, I'll just-"

"It's okay, Will," Alana interrupted him with another gentle smile, kneeling down to gather the pages into her arms and deposit them back onto the desk. She took a seat opposite him, folding her arms over her chest. 

"How can I help you, Dr. Bloom?" Will asked, shoving his current textbook aside and nudging his glasses further up the bridge of his nose. 

Alana didn't answer at first. Instead, she let her eyes trail over the numerous books surrounding Will, piled so high they towered over them, almost blocking out the rest of the library itself from view. Her eyes fell on the manila file, regarding it with an almost vacant look in her blue eyes. 

"You're working on a psychological profile on Hannibal Lecter for your Criminal Profiling course." Alana stated without question, getting straight to the point rather than beating around the bush.

"I am." Will replied slowly, trying to figure out the purpose of her visit. Her shoulders were tense, smile stiff at the subject. She was uncomfortable being here - not uncomfortable with Will but instead with the topic of conversation. 

"You've interviewed him." Again, not a question.

"I have." Will replied, focusing on a point just below her left eye as he stared at her. 

"You've been working his profile quite extensively since you were assigned his case." Alana continued, picking up and examining the closest textbook to her. "I know what kind of man he is, Will."

"Oh?" Will raised an eyebrow at her. She placed the textbook down carefully and leaned forward, resting her weight on her elbows and forearms. 

"He's intelligent and he's charming." Alana explained with a smile - a self-pitying one. Will glanced down at the mugshot of Hannibal and the back up at her.

"You knew him." Will said, connecting the dots. It would explain the tension in her shoulders, the look of pity she held in her eyes for him. She knew Hannibal - had thought that he was a friend.

"Yes, I knew him." Alana said, eyes downcast as if in thought. Remembering, Will realised, the man she had thought she knew. "He's dangerous, Will." 

"I know." Will said flatly. 

"Tell me about your observations of him. Tell me what you've learned about him." It sounded like a suggestion but Will knew an order when he heard one. Alana gave him an expectant look.

"I can't tell you what he is." _Y_ _et_ , Will thought, but he would find out. "But I can tell you what he's not."

"And what is he not?"

"He's not a psychopath." Will started. Alana's expression remained still, open and interested in what he had to say. It was a minor thing that Will appreciated - other staff at the Academy treated him like a child at times, reminding him of his age and lack of experience, never truly listening to what he had to say. 

"What makes you think that?" Alana asked quietly, leaning in closer to him across the desk. "He exhibits all the signs of a psychopath." 

"He's not a psychopath. He's something else entirely - something of his own making." Will explained, adamantly, running a hand through his curls. "He wouldn't have it any other way." 

"He shares characteristics with psychopaths - he lacks remorse and guilt, he has a grandiose sense of self-worth but he's not a psychopath. He isn't impulsive. He's in complete control - always. That's why he was so hard to catch. He chose his victims based on - based on _something_. It wasn't random, no, not to Lecter. His victims have something in common, something that only he can see. He was meticulous with his killings. He didn't lash out. It was all planned."

"What do you think his victim pool is?" Alana asked.

"I don't know." Will replied honestly, chewing on his thumbnail before shrugging. "Lecter enjoys keeping that little tidbit of information to himself. He won't tell what it is. He thinks its amusing to watch everybody trip over themselves trying to figure it out. Now that he's locked up he finds it even more so."

"You're good." Alana commented, leaning back in her seat. She assessed him for a moment before sitting up straight in her seat, a concerned look crossing her features. She reached out a hand to place over Will's, her skin soft against his. "But Hannibal is dangerous. Don't let yourself get too close, Will."

Will didn't reply. He glanced down at his desk that was littered with dozens upon dozen of used sheets of paper and textbooks that lay on the desk, the neighbouring chair, and even the floor. He was starting to suspect that he was already too close. 

Her hand squeezed his gently but he refused to meet her eyes. "I know what he's like, Will. I know how easy it is to get drawn in to his world. Don't let him drag you in or else you're gonna have to fight tooth and nail to get back. If Hannibal lets you, that is." Her ominous words were followed by the scraping of her chair against the floor and the click of heels on polished wood. She removed her hand from his and instead slid a small white card across the desk. 

"My office is on campus. My door is always open. Take my card and give me a call if you ever need to talk."

"Dr. Bloom." Will nodded his thanks as she departed, sliding the card between his fingers before he stored it away in his jacket pocket. Perhaps he would take her up on her offer - she clearly knew more about Lecter than she had been letting on to him.

  
-

  
Will continued to read for hours, writing notes until his hand ached and there was a callus on his middle finger. 

Sighing, Will threw his pen to the side and ignored the way it clattered on the table. The sound echoed around the hall. The library was mostly vacant - Will and two other students the exception. He hadn't even noticed the dwindling number of students, too immersed in his work to pay any attention to his surroundings. Looking around now, the library was silent. The otherwise dark room was illuminated only by the orange glow of the library's plentiful desk lamps. 

Will was forced to admit he was no closer to understanding Lecter than he had been when he began. He had spend the better half of an hour annotating photos of Lecter's last kill as the Chesapeake Ripper - a man by the name of Jeremy Olmstead who had been killed in his own workshop. Beside the picture there lay a copy of the Wound Man from the Fasiculo de Medicina. 

With another sigh, Will shoved everything away from him and let his head slowly slide down onto the desk, momentarily grateful for the press of his warm cheek against the cool surface. He let his thoughts run free, like water bursting from a dam. It didn't make sense. Hannibal Lecter didn't make sense. He needed to see him. Something resembling a frustrated growl left his throat as he snapped upright, fingers curled tightly into his hair. 

Will took a deep breath and loosened his grip on his hair and refocused his mind. He closed his eyes and exhaled sharply through his nose. Maybe he was looking at the situation from the wrong perspective. Will rubbed his temples. Maybe he was too focused on trying to make connections that _he_ wanted to see rather than... 

What Hannibal wanted to show.

Eyes snapping open, Will scrambled to grab the nearest photo of a crime scene. It was a Ripper scene depicting the gruesome murder of a local Baltimore councillor by the name of Isaiah Sinclair. The man was not high enough on the political ladder for his death to earn sensationalized media coverage but locally powerful enough for it to have Baltimore residents in quite a frenzy. Will had studied Sinclair's profile and had read a dozen or so newspaper articles about his death. From what he had read, the councillor was not popular with Baltimore locals due to rumours of corrupt behavior and ignoring local issues. Will took another look at his photo and studied it intensely.

If he wanted to see what Hannibal wanted to show then he had to think like the man himself. Will mentally recalled his visit to him, remembered the manner in which he carried himself - good posture, shoulders straight, head held high. Will shifted in his seat, sat upright and adjusted his shoulders. He inhaled through his nose. Closed his eyes. 

**The pendulum swung**.

_Will exhaled. He was outside Councillor Sinclair's house in Baltimore._

_"I enter Mr. Sinclair's home using a key he keeps under the doormat. Once inside I lock the door so that we are not disturbed._

_Mr. Sinclair is in the kitchen. He tries to run but I catch him and restrain him in a grappling hold, expertly reducing his airflow until he passes out._

_I drag him to his home office and lay him down across the desk. I inject him in the arm with succinylcholine, inducing a short-term paralysis. Mr. Sinclair will not live long enough to come out of it._

_This is my design."_

**The pendulum swung.**

_Will was standing over Sinclair's paralyzed body, scalpel in hand. The man was staring straight up, unable to do anything else._

_"I remove Mr. Sinclair's tongue. What use is it when he does not speak out against injustice? Next I remove his eyes. He would not see truth until he was blinded._

_I removed his heart with surgical precision. I use Mr. Sinclair's own scales to weigh his heart against a feather. The heart is heavier._

_Next I remove the lungs and liver. I will take these for myself._   
  
_This is my design."_

**The pendulum swung.**

_Will was neatly arranging bundles of flowers into Mr. Sinclair's open torso. The man was now sat in his chair._

_"I replace his organs with flower. The black-eyed susans represent justice, which Mr. Sinclair made a mockery of. The Black dahlias symbolise his betrayal of his people and highlights his dishonesty._   
  
_I make a mockery of him in death the way he made a mockery of others in life._

_This is my design."_

**The pendulum swung.**

  
-

  
Will gasped as he opened his eyes. He didn't remember picking up his pen but it was clutched tightly in his fist, ink scrawled along the paper he had been writing. The pen dropped from his hand and Will slumped in his seat, heaving deep breaths and wanting nothing more than to go to sleep. His whole body was trembling and he felt beads of sweat roll down from his temple to soak the collar of his shirt.

The only other students in the library hadn't noticed Will's episode - the young man nearest to him had his head bent so low that his nose almost touched his book and he was wearing a pair of headphones while the young woman facing him had fallen asleep at her desk, head resting on her folded arms.

Will stared at the crime scene photo in his hands and dropped it onto the desk. The Ripper had wanted to humiliate Sinclair and it had been easy for him to do... because he didn't see Mr. Sinclair as an equal. Snatching further documents towards him, Will's mind began to form a pattern. After some consideration and shuffling of papers around, Will stared at the layout and recalled what he knew.

Hannibal Lecter did not see others as his equal. His grandiose sense of self elevated his status in his mind. Others were inferior to him - like animals. The Ripper killed in batches of three, similar to the way that animals were butchered in... sounders. Lecter saw them as pigs. The Ripper killed in _sounders_ of three and ate their remains.

Feeling electrified, Will quickly gathered up his belongings and shoved them into his bag. A check of his watch told him that it was nearing midnight. His blood was pumping through his body, rushing through his veins as his heart hammered against his ribcage. 

He needed to see Hannibal.

  
-

  
The rain was hammering down from the night sky as Will yanked open the door to the Baltimore State Hospital for Criminally Insane. A bright flash of lightening was quickly followed by a rolling clap of thunder as the door slammed shut behind him.

Will took a moment to catch his breath. Patting himself down and trying to smooth his hair, Will aproached the receptionist at the desk. It was not Linda that he had met last week. A man sat there instead, looking bored as he read from a magazine. He gave Will a hardened look as he reached the desk. 

Will ignored it, aware that his shoes had trudged dirt into the otherwise spotless building and that he appeared worse for wear. Droplets of water were beading at the ends of his hair and sliding down his face, his cheeks pink and raw from the cold wind outside. 

"Will Graham to see Hannibal Lecter." Will said breathlessly, trying to regain his composure. He gripped the desk to steady himself - neither the torrential rain nor the hour-long train ride had diminished the exhilaration he had felt after making a discovery about Hannibal.

"Visiting hours are eight in the morning to five in the evening." The man, whose name tag read Arthur, replied flatly. His eyes flickered to the clock on the wall and then back to Will. "It's almost four in the morning." 

Will felt his hand twitch and he offered a confident smile that lacked any kind of sincerity. "I'm with the bureau," Will explained, which was not technically a lie. He had spent the last four hours on a train, buzzing in his compartment and unable to sit still. He would _not_ be turned back now. Chancing his arm, Will was assertive and collected when he said, "Dr. Chilton said it was alright to drop in at any time due to a scheduling conflict."

Arthur narrowed his eyes at him, unsure. 

"You can call him if you'd like." Will smiled again, bearing his teeth.

It was a risk that he had been willing to make. Arthur didn't seem particularly interested in his job enough to argue with visitors, especially not ones that allegedly had Chilton's approval. He would rather go back to reading his magazine and pretending he was anywhere else.

Arthur looked him up and down before he gave a reluctant sigh. "You know all the rules?" 

"Yes, sir." 

"You know the way to Lecter's cell?"

"Yes, sir."

Arthur assessed him before giving a single nod. With a quick flick of his wrist, the klaxon-like alarm blared and Will heard the click of the door unlocking. 

"Barney isn't working tonight. Adrian will be monitoring you." Arthur informed him and Will nodded his thanks before he took off, following his and Chilton's previously taken path to the maximum security wing. He knocked on the door before entering Barney's office, greeted by the sight of a unfamiliar men sitting around a desk. 

A short man with a very round belly, presumably Adrian, stood from his seat with a suspicious look on his face. "Can I help you, young man?" 

Will held back a frown at the man's words and cleared his throat. "I'm Will Graham. I'm here to see Dr. Lecter."

Realisation crossed Adrian's features and he chuckled, the sound sparking a twitch of irritation in Will. "When Arthur said there was an agent on his way down I had expected someone a little older."

"I'm a trainee." Will explained shortly, ready for the conversation to end so that he could see Lecter. "Do you mind if I go on through?"

Adrian glanced over his shoulder at the security cameras for several seconds before turning back to face him. "You know the rules?" 

"Yes, sir." Will confirmed, ignoring the way the rain was soaking through his jacket and making his skin crawl. He suppressed a shiver.

"Alright then." Adrian waved him over to the door as he opened it for him, accompanied by the standard single blare of the alarm. "The lights are off at the minute. Give me a little while and I'll have Lecter's on as soon as I can. Luckily for you, he's still awake. Man never seems to sleep."

In his excitement, Will hadn't even stopped to considered whether or not Hannibal wpuld even be awake. He supposed he was in luck as he walked down the quiet corridor, snores from various cells the only source of noise. He picked up his pace until he was half-jogging down the corridor, only stopping once he reached Hannibal's cell. 

If Hannibal was surprised to see him, he hid it well. Will could barely make out his silhouette in the shadows of his cell but he dropped to the floor anyway, sitting cross-legged right in front of the partition. He shrugged off his drenched jacket and threw it to the floor beside him. Hannibal didn't say anything but Will could see the soles of his prison-issued shoes, crossed over one another at the foot of his bed.

"You saw them as pigs." Will began, whispering as if he were unwilling to disturb the silence. "I read the transcript of your case. Everyone called you a cannibal - the prosecution, the jury, the judge. But you never actually called yourself a cannibal, did you?" Will didn't wait for Hannibal to speak before he launched into his own answer, "That's because we accept the slaughter and consumption of animals as acceptable in our society. It's not morally wrong to eat a pig - it's not cannibalism. But you? You saw your victims as pigs, as something inferior and not deserving of life. You don't consider it cannibalism because you don't consider them your equal. There is no morally grey area for you. You have your own view of the world that is distinctive from anyone else's. In your eyes, there is no difference between a person and a pig. It's not that you _lack_ empathy for people - you _refuse_ to empathize with something so beneath you."

There was a heavy silence that fell over them once Will came to a breathless conclusion. Will's forehead was pressed against the glass, heaving breaths fogging up the glass.

"What a clever boy you are." Hannibal's voice eventually sounded in his cell, reverberating around the empty corridor. Will heard the rustling of bedsheets and creaking of the bed frame. The soles of Hannibal's shoes disappeared before the man himself stepped out of the shadows, looking exactly how Will remembered him.

The food carrier beside Will suddenly slid open with a loud snap that made Will jump. Feeling wary, he looked inside to find a fluffy white towel.

"Thank you." Will said quietly, grateful, as he picked up the towel and began to pat himself dry, running it through his hair until it was dry enough that it no longer dripped water but was still relatively damp. He watched Hannibal's feet pace along his cell. "That's what it is, isn't it, Dr. Lecter? I'm right, aren't I?"

"You seem very confident." Hannibal was suddenly much closer, standing above Will and gazing down at him. 

"I am." Will replied steadily, concealing his trembling hands by playing with the towel. 

Hannibal was quiet for a moment before he took a seat facing Will, imitating his position with his legs crossed. Will was startled to be so close to the man. Had the partition not separated them, he was close enough for Will to reach out and touch.

"Smart boy." Hannibal said with a devious smile, eyes boring into Will. "Tell me, how did figure it out?" 

"I studied you." Will replied honestly, meeting the older man's eyes and ignoring the way Hannibal raised an eyebrow at him, looking far too pleased. "Then I..."

"Yes, William, what did you do?" Hannibal urged him softly, trying to coax the words he wanted to hear out of him.

"I - I imagined that I was you. When you..." Will blew out a shaky breath, "when you killed Isaiah Sinclair." 

"Ah, yes, Mr. Sinclair. A particularly irritating thorn in my side, I must say." Hannibal smiled pleasantly at Will. "Now, when you say you imagined yourself as me - how did you do it?"

"I'm not sure. It's just something that I can do." Will shrugged, pulling at the threads on the towel. "I've always been able to. My dad just said I had an overactive imagination."

"Perhaps he was right." Hannibal replied, studying the man before him intently. "What a peculiar boy you are."

Will frowned at that, eyes dropping to the floor. Has heard the same phrase - words twisted around and bent but the implication the same - his entire life. Always Will the freak or the misfit or the weirdo that nobody wanted to approach. He knew his demeanour wasn't friendly, knew he was responsible for the stilted conversations he tried to avoid. 

"You think I'm a freak." Will said quietly, unsure why it made him feel so low. It was one thing hearing it from the everyday individual but another thing entirely to hear it from a criminally insane cannibalistic serial killer.

"On the contrary, William, I think you are perhaps the most interesting individual to ever step foot in Baltimore." Hannibal replied lightly, causing Will's fingers to freeze and stop fidgeting in the towel.

"Oh." Will paused. "And why is that?"

"You fascinate me." Hannibal stated simply, though his stare was still rather intense. Will couldn't help but notice that he hadn't actually answered Will's question.

"Why?" Will demanded to know. Will didn't fascinate people - he frightened them, made them feel ill at ease and uncomfortable. Of course the only person that would find him interesting was Hannibal Lecter.

"Does there need to be a reason?" Hannibal asked, blinking innocently.

"Well, Dr. Lecter, put yourself in my position and then try to imagine what you would think if a serial killer told you that he found you fascinating." Will answered flatly with a raised brow. 

"Ah," Hannibal offered with a wicked smile, "yes, I can imagine how that might arouse suspicion." 

"Then you see my dilemma." Will continued in the same flat tone.

"Dilemma? Hardly." Hannibal didn't scoff but his tone radiated a similar vibe.

"No?"

"You know what I am, William. You know what I'm capable of." Hannibal explained, sounding as self-assured as always, "I have nothing to hide. A stranger, on the other hand, could be anybody. Could be anything. Strangers have an awful lot to hide, don't you think?"

"You're not going to change my mind, Dr. Lecter." Will told him outright just as the light in his cell switched on. The intensity of it made Will flinch and he squinted his eyes against its brightness.  
  
"We'll see." Hannibal hummed, regarding Will with a smile that displayed all of his teeth. 

Will reluctantly met Hannibal's eyes. The colour reminded him of blood. He felt his heart pounding so fast in his chest he was sure the other man could hear it. Hannibal's smirk widened and Will gulped.

How did one define 'too close'?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I watched Silence of the Lambs last night and it kinda inspired the whole Hannibal giving Will a towel thing/sitting on the floor thing lmao i love that movie
> 
> Anyways, I hope you enjoyed!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the comments and kudos! So happy you're all enjoying the story so far :) just a few warnings for this chapter below (although none of it really explicit, just mentioned as part of a case but i figured i'd give a warning anyway)
> 
> *tw: mention or rape/sexual assault, murder, desecration of a corpse

The library was starting to become something of a second home to Will. He was convinced he spent more time in the confines of its walls than his own dorm room, perusing the dusty shelves for hours on end and reading until his eyes burned in his skull. 

Blinking rapidly, Will shoved his glasses further up the bridge of his nose and adjusted the textbook in his hands. The words appeared blurred to him and he rubbed his eyes, stifling yet another yawn. He blinked again and tried to focus on the words beneath him. However, they seemed to have lost all sense and meaning to him. He was too tired. He wanted nothing more than to go home and climb into his bed, where he would remain undisturbed for several hours. Instead, he continued to attempting to study, although he found himself drifting off to sleep every once in a while and was quick to snap himself out of it. Nevertheless, he could soon feel his eyelids slowly drooping - hours of caffeine-fueled studying and cramping arms finally catching up with. The urge to rest his head on his folded arms was too strong to fight off and he was soon fast asleep, glasses askew on his face.

  
-

  
He was running.

The cold night air bit at his cheeks, making them raw and red. His hands stung, palms littered with cuts and scrapes. His legs ached, muscles seizing up. His chest burned, drawing in sharp breaths as he ran. He couldn't look back. He needed to keep running. Nowhere. Somewhere. Anywhere.

The forest's trees grew thicker, taller. Towering over him ominously and blocking out the dull light of the pale moon in the inky black sky. He kept going, shoving aside dangling branches and ignoring the way the sharp twigs scraped at his body.

He needed to keep running.

He needed to keep -

He needed -

He -

He fell to his knees in a clearing, heaving gasping breaths, cold sweat beading around his collar as he sank into the cold earth beneath him.

The clearing should have been beautiful. The grass was a lush bottle-green, dew glistening in the moon. The trees were magnificent, soaring in the night sky and overgrown with moss and vines. The clearing should have been beautiful.

It was not.

It was too still - no wind dared to disrupt the eerie calmness that had settled over it. It was suffocating, paralyzing. 

Will was afraid to move.

Then he heard it. In the distance - the gentle trot of hooves on the ground, the sound of rustling bushes and snapping twigs. Will's heart had stopped beating and he did not dare look back. Not when the hooves came closer and closer, nor when he felt the warm, damp breath on the back of his neck. 

He could see it from the corner of his eye as it circled him - the stag. It was as dark as the sky above them, its large, powerful body covered in raven coloured fur with broad, branched antlers expanding from its head. 

Will felt light-headed as it slowly walked around him, occasionally nudging Will with its muzzle. Suddenly, the stag let out a shuddering growl through its nose and reared up on its hind legs, kicking its front legs fiercely before they hit the ground, hooves pawing at the earth wildly, shaking its head from side to side, it's large body trembling with the force of its low growl and heavy snort through its muzzle.

Will followed its gaze to the other end of the clearning, where he could now see shadows dancing behind the trees. He was struck with the sudden urge to bury his fingers in the creature's fur, to calm it. He did not. Instead, he watched the forest with wide eyes as a figure emerged from its darkness. 

The forest was no longer still. The trees above them danced with the sudden wind, branches rattling dangerously and leaves shaking in wind that Will could not feel. He could only see the figure emerging from the shadows, its presence drawing Will in like a moth to a flame. The forest seemed to move with it, its movements graceful and fluid as it approached him. He couldn't see its face. It was black, like a shadow in the night, with large antlers adorning its head like a crown. Its presence was familiar, all-consuming, overwhelming. Will felt his lips part in recognition, the name tumbling from his mouth;

" _Hannibal_." 

Hannibal emerged fully from the shadows, stepping into the single ray of moonlight offered through the thick canopy above them. Gone were the antlers, the shadow figure. He looked just as Will remembered him and yet so different.

"Hello, Will." 

Hannibal's voice echoed around the clearing, surrounding Will and making him feel as though he were drowning in it. It was all he could hear. He could see the rustling of the grass, could see the heavy breathing of the stag beside him and yet he could only hear Hannibal's voice.

"Hannibal." Will repeated his name in a breathless whisper.

The man didn't reply as he moved forward, circling Will as the stag had done, watching him, assessing him. His footsteps were silent as he moved and Will felt his heart hammering in his chest, suddenly aware of his vulnerability. He was on the ground, the weight of his body digging his knees further into the earth. Hannibal stalked him like a predator, like Will was the prey.

"William." His called out behind him and he did not look back, keeping his eyes on the trees in front of him. There was a certain delight in his voice as it carried around the forest, a distinct amusement. He came to stand a short distance in front of Will, his red eyes gleaming dangerously and a teasing smile that displayed his sharp teeth. "Can you see me, Will?" Hannibal's mocking whisper reverberated around the clearing, curling around Will like tendrils. He tensed up. The hairs on the back of his neck rose. His skin prickled. His heart hammered against his rib cage.

However, before Will could even blink, Hannibal was behind him. He was so close Will could almost _feel_ his smile. Heat radiated off him in waves, so hot it almost burned, and yet when he whispered to Will - close enough for Will to feel his warm breath tickling his ear - it felt like ice was slowly seeping into his spine, rendering him unable to move, to _breathe_ as the sinister words echoed back to him in a faded whisper;

" _I can see you_." 

  
-

  
Will startled awake, struggling to catch his breath and running a shaking hand through his damp curls. His whole body was shivering, twitching as cold sweat dripped down his back, soaking his shirt. He snatched his glasses from where they sat slanted on nose and threw them on top of a messy stack of papers. 

He lay back in his chair, the stiff wood digging uncomfortably into his neck. With a quick glance around the library, he was thankful to notice that it was empty and therefore no one had bore witness to his episode. He tried not to think of the dream, of Hannibal. He wasn't sure what to make of it as the man's word rang in his mind.

Slowly gathering his stuff, Will shoved them into his bag, ignoring the tremors shooting through his hands. Once he had forced all of his belongings into his backpack, he was quick to leave the library, his legs feeling as if they were made of lead.

When he arrived home, he felt extremely weary but unable to sleep. His dream had shaken him to his core and he found himself unwilling to analyse it any further. Instead, he lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling until the sun slowly illuminated the room, willing any thoughts about Hannibal Lecter away. 

"Couldn't sleep?" 

The deep voice snapped Will's attention to his roommate, James, who was sitting on the edge of his own standard-issue bed, rolling his neck until he heard a satisfying pop. 

"Hm? Oh. No, not really." Will admitted, drumming his fingers across his stomach. He uncrossed his arms and threw his blanket to the side, climbing out of bed with heavy limbs and slow movements. James followed suit, going to his closet to rifle through it. 

"I heard that you're profiling Hannibal Lecter for Matthieu's class." James commented, grabbing his trainee uniform and throwing it onto his bed. He turned to Will. "What's that like?"

Will thought for a moment on how to accurately explain what it was like to interview the Chesapeake Ripper. He couldn't quite find the right word and settled on "weird".

James snorted quietly, shaking his head. "You shouldn't even be interviewing him in the first place." James continued, throwing a pair of socks onto his bed to join his uniform. 

"Why not?" Will wondered allowed.

"He's dangerous, even behind bars. A few psychologists that tried to evaluate him ended up emotionally traumatised. Hell, he even killed a nurse while _in_ prison." James explained, voice taking on a serious tone, leaning against his desk and folding his arms over his broad chest. His green eyes roamed over Will's face before he blinked and turned away. "It's careless. The Bureau is putting you at risk for the sake of a grade. It's not right."

Will was momentarily stunned by the other man's concern for him. No one, with the exception of Savannah, had truly given any indication that they cared for Will since his father had died when he was seventeen. James wasn't particularly the type to show emotion, Will knew that much from rooming with him, but he was a kind man, affable. Will had passed out surrounded by textbooks often enough to know that they did not neatly stack themselves on his bedside table. James had even joked to him about it while they studied at their respective desks. Will liked James. People often found his appearance decieving. James was a large man, taller than Will by several inches, muscular and barrel-chested - almost Herculean. However, beneath the brawn lay a heart of gold. He vaguely reminded will of Barney Matthews. James turned to Will expectantly and Will pursed his lips, exhaling heavily.

"I guess so." Was all that Will could muster up with a half-hearted shrug.

"Be careful, Will." James warned, eyes wandering to the several textbooks piled underneath Will's bed. Suddenly, he smiled at him. "You wanna shower first? I don't have class until ten." 

With those words, they fell back into their familiar routine. They bustled around one another in the tiny room. Will showered first, taking his time to scrub himself clean and steadfast ignoring how the boiling water reminded him of how hot Hannibal had burned beside him in his dream. 

Will emerged from the bathroom almost half an hour later, steam flooding out from the tiny room through the open doorway. He found the dorm room empty and a single cup of coffee sitting on his desk in a takeaway cup from a local cafe. A post-it note placed beside it read ' _try not to let Matthieu put you to sleep_ ' in messy cursive. Will allowed himself a smile as he made his way to his Criminal Profiling class.

  
-

  
Although he wanted nothing more than to lay his head down on the desk before him and rest, Will remained awake, slouched over his desk and staring blankly Professor Matthieu as the old man paced around the theatre. Savannah was quick to give him a sharp nudge in the ribs when she noticed him drifting off, startling him awake every time.

They were an hour into their class and Will regretted not skipping it as Matthieu droned on about psychoanalysis. The class let out a collective sigh of gratitude when the doors swung open and a tall, gangly man dressed in a fitting suit entered the theatre. He strode into the room confidently and greeted Matthieu witha familiar smile. Based on his age (his youth accentuated by his smooth face, the taut body beneath the fabric of his suit, the buoyancy in his steps) Will figured that the man was a recent graduate.

The man offered the class a polite apology for his interruption before he approached Matthieu with murmured words, back turned to the students. Matthieu ordered the class to talk amongst themselves for a moment while they conversed in hushed tones, slow and deliberate nods, and a final appreciative pat on the younger man's shoulders. 

"Mr. Graham." 

Will looked up as the words fell from Matthieu's lips, a sudden burst of unpleasantness in his chest making him feel uneasy. The room fell silent. All eyes were on him. A million thoughts raced through his head at once to remember what he had possibly done but he drew a blank, unable to do anything but reluctantly meet Matthieu's eyes.

"Jack Crawford wants to see you." 

The silence burst like a bubble, the room suddenly alive with hushed whispers of "what does he want with Will?" and " _the_ Jack Crawford? The _Guru_?" Will was inclined to feel the same way.

With stiff limbs, he hastily gathered his belongings and stood. He ignored the eyes on him as he squeezed past chairs and descended the steps of the theatre onto the main floor, suddenly feeling very small. 

"Follow me, Mr. Graham." The unfamiliar agent ordered, leading Will out the door. Will did, resisting the urge to throw a final glance over his shoulder at the theatre. Instead, he followed the man down the corridors and kept silent.

What did Jack Crawford want with him of all people?

  
-

  
"Agent Crawford." Will announced his presence with a gentle knock on the man's office door, stepping inside with a quick assessment of the room. It was just the two of them inside. 

Jack was sitting at his desk, reading from a file that lay on his desk in front of him. He was a large man, wide and tall, with dark skin and tightly-coiled greying hair.

"Mr. Graham. Thank you for coming. Sorry to drag you out off class like this." Jack offered him a diplomatic smile and gestured to the seat in front of him. "Please, take a seat.

"You wanted to see me, sir?" Will asked as he sat down, placing his notebook down on the empty chair beside him.

"Yes, I did." Jack leaned forward on the desk, steepling his fingers and gazing at Will with a calculating look in his eyes. Will stared at the bridge of his nose. "Professor Matthieu tells me that you're somewhat gifted at profiling. He says you've scored so highly in your assignments that you've practically destroyed the grading curve in your class."

Will wasn't sure how to respond nor understand the direction the conversation was going. He knew there more to it - it was highly unlikely that Jack Crawford, Head of the Behavioural Science Unit of the FBI, wanted to congratulate him on his grades.

Jack leaned back in his seat and gave Will a look that meant business. He wasn't the type to stall or beat around the bush - he preferred getting straight to the point. Will sat up a little straighter in his seat, offering Jack his full attention.

"Listen, Will - do you mind if I call you Will?" Will had barely nodded his head before Jack dove right back in. "We need your help on a case. We need you to profile somone."

"Who?" Will asked, eyebrows drawing together as he narrowed his eyes.

With a long sigh through his nose, Jack stood up from his seat and walked towards a large whiteboard at the corner of his office. Will had noticed it when he had first entered the room but hadn't thought much of it other than an it was ongoing case. It had various short or one-worded descriptions written in marker on it in, surrounding the numerous pictures and documents tacked onto its surface. Jack stood before it, surveying it with his eyes, arms folded in front of him.

"The media is calling him the new Jack the Ripper," Jack explained, half of his body angled towards Will and the other towards the board. An invitation, Will realised, and he stood to join the man at his side. His eyes darted across the board - taking in the faces of the man's victims, gruesome crimes scenes, and a map of South Carolina marked with various pins spread across it. "Abducted four women, all prostitutes, at an intersection in Summerville. Their bodies were found in various motels across town. The women had been sexually assaulted and raped prior to death and then disemboweled post-mortem."

Jack allowed Will a moment to process the information before pointing to a picture of a young woman. Her face was gaunt, pale skin stretched tight over sharp cheekbones and a pointed chin. Her eyes were hooded and hollow, sunken into her skull. Her blonde hair fell down to her chest, limp and lifeless. 

"The first victim was Annika Vasilyev, twenty six. Body was found three weeks ago by a maid in Silver Ridge Motel." Jack explained before pointing to another picture of a woman whose face was much fuller than the first, with round cheeks and chestnut hair that fell to her shoulders in loose curls. "Addison Miller, twenty two. Her body was found six days after Vasilyev's in Sunrise Plaza Motel - autopsy report confirmed an almost identical M.O."

Will assessed the photos, eyes flicking between the girls' faces and the crime scene photos. He focused on the latter attentively, absorbing as much information and detail as he could.

Jack gave the board a sweeping glance before he heaved a sigh. "The media is calling him the Streetlight Butcher."

"That has the distinct calling card of Freddie Lounds." Will replied, feeling a twitch of irritation. Freddie was well known and not particularly popular within the corridors of the FBI. However, Will disliked her entirely. Her articles on Tattlecrime were tasteless, lacking any true compassion and merely a means of boosting sales. 

"Got it in one." Jack said dryly, clearly not a fan of her either.

"She got the butcher part right though, I'll give her that." Will admitted, leaning closer to examine the crime scene photo. The woman, Annika, lay naked in a pool of blood on top of an old, worn bed. She was split open by a deep vertical cut starting at her throat and extending all the way down to her genitals. Her organs had been pulled out and left on top of her torso. 

"Oh?" Jack stood a little straighter at Will's comment, raising an eyebrow at him and at the documents on the board - they were profiles that theorized the killer had some kind of medical expertise, perhaps a surgeon or doctor or some sort.

"Here," Will pointed, tracing his index finger over the wound as Jack leaned in closer, "you can see that that incisions made to the stomach have precision - but its not medical. He's a butcher or, at least, he used to be. He's gutted them how you would an animal. These wounds are violent, they're savage, vicious - he's using brutality to disguise the fact that he has a certain amount of anatomical knowledge to make those specific cuts. It's not medical standard but certainly above that of the everyday person. Few jobs require you to know that kind of information, unless of course, they intended for you to use it. Places our killer in a rather narrow pool of suspects, don't you think?"

Jack looked impressed. "Well, I can see now how you destroyed the grading curve." He joked lightly, although there was a pleased look in his eyes as he regarded Will.

Will's replying smile was bashful and he pretended to read from a page on the board rather than meet the older man's eyes. 

"What do you say, Will? Will you help me?" Jack asked, crossing his arms over his chest and gazing at the board.

Will couldn't help but notice how Jack had switched to 'me' rather than 'us'. He was under pressure, no doubt under serious scrutiny from the media and public as well as having to deal with a murderer running rampant along the streets of Summerville. Will had the sudden epiphany that Jack had not been pleased after Will gave him his short analysis but rather _relieved_. He had exhausted every other measure trying to catch this killer. Will had been a last resort. One that had paid off, evidently.

Will shot a quick look at Jack through the corner of his eye, noted the tense manner in which he held himself, the subtle pleading of his dark eyes as he turned his head briefly to meet Will's eyes 

"I'll help you." Will decided, eyes falling back to the board and pretending not to notice the way Jack's whole body seemed to slump in relief. 

"Welcome aboard, Special Agent Graham."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! 
> 
> Also pls let me know if you spot any SPG mistakes bc i was pretty tired when i wrote and edited this so there might be a couple lol


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the change in tags! The rape/non-con isn't explicit but it is part of a crime scene so if that's triggering for you please just skip ahead a couple paragraphs. 
> 
> It starts with the line: "The pendulum swung." so just skip down a couple paragraphs until you see that line again if you don't want to read it.
> 
> Other than that, I hope you enjoy!

Will was awoken by the shrill ringing of his cellphone - the noise sharp and splitting through the silence of the dorm room. Groaning, he blindly reached around for it, the files he had been reading tumbling to the carpeted floor with a loud thud, pages spilling everywhere, and several pens scattering all over his bedside table.

"Turn that off, Will." James mumbled, groggy and disoriented as he buried his head under his pillow to block out the noise. "It's been ringin' for the last five minutes."

"Sorry," Will replied as his fingers clasped around the phone, which had apparently fallen under his bed while he had been sleeping. He quickly snatched it up off the floor and bolted up when he saw the caller ID on the screen. 

_Jack Crawford_

With fumbling fingers, Will quickly accepted the call, holding his cell between his shoulder and ear as he clambered out of bed and into the empty hallway. The fluorescent whites of the hallway lamps were blinding and Will flinched, shading his eyes from the sudden onslaught of light as he listened carefully to the call.

"There's been another murder." Jack informed him in lieu of greeting, voice tight, before he launched in with details, "one victim - currently unidentified, body was found in the Lunar Valley Motel in southern Summerville twenty minutes ago by the local police department after an anonymous tip was sent in. Forensics in the local PD say it's definitely the Butcher. We're heading to South Carolina now. I'll be there to pick you up in ten minutes. Be ready."

The call ended abruptly, leaving Will standing alone in the middle of the corridor trying to process all the new information given to him. However, he didn't have time to mull over his thoughts. Instead he quickly retreated to his dorm and rifled through his closet, grabbing the nearest item of clothing within his reach.

"Where're you goin' at three in the mornin'?" James' voice emerged from beneath his pillow, thick with drowsiness and sleep. 

"Crawford needs me at a crime scene." Will explained, words tumbling from his mouth as he reached into his drawers to retrieve a clean pair of socks on his way to the bathroom. "He's gonna be here in around ten minutes." 

Will shut the bathroom door behind him with those words, hastily dressing himself in between constant checks on his watch. He brushed his teeth, gargled some mouthwash and exited the small room in a hurry. James had seemingly fallen back to sleep and so Will tried to remain quiet as he trod lightly around the room but it proved fruitless as he was soon hopping around on one foot in order to shove the other into his shoe. 

"It's cold out," James's voice once again sounded from beneath his pillow as soon as Will's hand came into contact with the door handle, "bring a coat."

The room fell silent again as Will departed, keys in one hand and his heavy green jacket in the other. 

James was right, of course. As soon as Will stepped out of the dorm building he was hit with a bitter wind. The night was bleak and frigid, the air nipping at Will's hands so harshly he had no choice but to shove them deep into his pocket, curled into fists as he shivered against the wintry cold. 

Fortunately, Jack pulled up in a large black SUV a few moments later. Will quickly climbed into the car, savouring its warmth as he shut the door beside him and wrung his hands together, blowing on them to heat himself up.

"Trust me, you'd rather see a crime scene in the winter than in the summer." A voice announced from the back seat. Will almost jumped as a woman appeared behind him, leaning in between the two front seats with a welcoming smile. "Rather a frozen corpse than one that's been sitting out in the sun. Right, Jack?"

Jack didn't asnwer her query. Instead, he kept his eyes facing forward as they sped along the empty roads above the legal speed limit. "Will, this is Agent Beverly Katz. Beverly, this is Special Agent Will Graham."

"Welcome to the team, Will." The woman, Beverly, winked at him. "I'm a crime scene investigator for the Behavioural Analysis Unit - I specialize in fiber analysis."

"Nice to meet you, Miss Katz." Will replied, inching his head to the side to get a better look at her. She was of Korean descent. She was young, probably in her early to mid-thirties. Dark, wavy hair fell just a few inches below her shoulders. Her face was slim but round, her eyes beady but warm and her smile offered reassurance. She was an older sibling, Will theorized, offering comfort to those younger than her almost like a second nature. 

"Call me Beverly." Beverly brushed off his formalities with a casual wave of her hand. "You look a little young. What department are you with?"

"I'm not with any department." Will said, turning back to face the front. "I'm still at the Academy."

"You have a trainee investigating crime scenes?" Beverly's head snapped in Jack's direction, eyebrows raised in disbelief and her tone accusing. Yes, Will thought, definitely an older sibling.

"Yes, I do." Jack replied flatly, keeping his eyes on the road, "under the reccomendation of one of the FBI's most respected professors."

Will felt his cheeks turn pink, unsure if it was the result of Beverly's protectiveness over him or Jack's confidence in him. Either way, he was grateful for the darkness of the night that hid his blush and took to gazing out the window as the landscape flashed by them.

It had been a few days since his temporary promotion to 'Special Agent' and it still took some getting used to. He had been stopped in between classes by certain lecturers - some that he did not even know - and congratulated on earning such a promotion, from Jack Crawford himself, no less. Less students knew, however, at Will's own request. Very few of his peers knew, with the exception of his roommate and Savannah. He didn't need another reason to become the subject of everyone's conversation. 

Will had read the profile Jack had given to him. He had found it only mildly interesting - horrendously dull, in fact, compared to Hannibal Lecter's. The pendulum had swung and Will unearthed that the killer was a definitely a man, younger than the profile suggested, witnessed the abuse of women from an early age - his father assaulting his mother perhaps, or maybe a sister. A strict household, conservative and traditionalist. He targeted prostitutes specifically for this reason - a conservative upbringing resulted in him seeing prostitutes as little more than a scourge of society, a plague on and perversion of morality. However, Will also knew that this killer - this Streetlight Butcher - _enjoyed_ his work. He took pleasure in killing, a twisted satisfaction in watching his victims struggle before he took the life from them. He would have killed regardless of his background, Will knew, his upbringing just helped determine his pattern. There was a particularly deep itch inside of him that stemmed from his childhood - an itch that shaped his victim pattern, his own modus operandi - and only killing in this particular fashion would satisfy him. He reveled in the brutality of it, in the power it gave him. Overall, Will found him tedious. It was all very predictable - the textbook definition of a psychopath. He was meticulous, Will could give him that, never leaving behind a single shread of evidence. His DNA was not in the system and therefore untraceable. Everything else in the motel room remained untouched. It was frustrating to the forensic teams, no doubt. 

No, the Streetlight Butcher didn't quite capture Will's interest - not the way that the Chesapeake Ripper had. Hannibal Lecter was an enigma that Will wanted to unravel. He created artwork, elevated his victims in death. The Streetlight Butcher was a lesser killer, inferior in his design.

Will's line of thought ended when the SUV came to an abrupt halt. Will looked around as Jack and Beverly climbed out of the car and he quickly followed, shivering against the cold air. It was warmer now, still dark out, but the air no longer held the same cold bitterness. Nevertheless, Will shoved his hands onto pockets and followed Jack and Beverly through the parting crowds. 

The scene outside the motel was chaos. There were light shining everywhere he looked - the flashing red and blue of the local police cars and ambulances, the white flare of clicking cameras. Officers were everywhere, sectioning off certain areas or else searching for clues. Crowds milled around the police barrier, barricaded off by armed officers and yellow tape. The crowd ranged from paparazzi to fellow motel guests to casual onlookers - most spoke in feverish tones with one another, craning their necks to get a clearer look at the scene before them, and the paparazzi were shouting questions at passing officers, mics held out in their extended arms. Will could hear police sirens in the distance, the crackling of radios and the shouting of orders. It was almost overwhelming and Will stuck close to Jack, following him as the crowds parted for the agent.

Jack's pace was brisk, dismissing the officers that immediately bombarded them upon their arrival. 

"Paparazzi arrived about twenty minutes after I called," the sheriff explained in a heavy Southern accent as he nearly jogged to keep up with Jack. He was a slim man of average height, his tanned face lined with age, his grey hair slicked back and a large, bushy moustache sat over his top lip. "Whoever called in that anonymous tip must've took a picture of the body. It was up on Tattlecrime before my boys even got here. They been here for hours now."

"Lounds." Was all Jack grumbled.

"Good news is that somebody identified the girl. Name was Tamira Johnson, twenty six, moved here from Conway around seven years ago." The sheriff explained as they entered the crime scene.

Before Will had even stepped inside the room, he was hit with the smell of blood - the iron, coppery tang irritating his nose. The room was cool to impede the rate of decay and officers and angents alike swarmed around, collecting evidence and placing markers. The wallpaper was a faded, peeling yellow and the carpet a reddish brown, it's surface coarse and bristled.

Will's eyes immediately fell to the corpse on the double bed in the corner. The Butcher's latest victim lay in a pool of her own blood, the dark crimson red seeping into the white sheetsband staining them further. The girl was extremely thin, her dark skin stretched tight across her bones. Her frame was skeletal, her ribs jutted out prominently, her limbs skinny and covered his long scrapes, her face gaunt and angular. Like the others, she too had been sliced from throat to genitals, her organs torn out and strewn across her torso. However, the cuts looked more brutal, more savage. The cut was more jagged than previous victims, several of the the organs looked significantly more damaged, and Will was confident that autopsy results would report heavier violence in the sexual assault. 

"You need anything, Will? How do you wanna do this?" Jack's voice brought his focus back to the agent. He mulled over his words.

"I, uh, I need to be alone." Will said quietly, so only Jack could hear, letting his gaze fall to the closed curtains on the window behind the older man's shoulder. 

He was grateful when Jack simply gave swift nod and yelled, "alright, everybody clear out! Let's go!" Officers and agents pocketed notebooks and bagged evidence, shuffling out the door with confused murmurs. He listened intently until the last agent was out of the room, simply nodded when Jack lightly clapped him on the shoulder before he himself departed, leaving Will alone with the victim and his thoughts.

On the rare occassions Will had emerged himself into another person's mind like this, he was always alone. People distracted him - talking too loudly, shuffling by him, bags rattling with collected evidence. He wasn't sure why he let himself get so distracted by others - his father had always just told him that was perceptive like that, clever with an overactive imagination. 

Will had sometimes wondered if it was something more than that. Unfortunately for him, he had never stayed anywhere long enough to seek the help he had probably needed to understand himself better. Even more unfortunate, perhaps, was that his first true encounter with psychiatrists that could have offered that kind of help first appeared in Will's life when he was seventeen years old and his father had just died. Will had been too much of an emotional wreck - in his own quiet, brooding sort of way - and had not wanted to talk to anybody, much less psychiatrists that would constantly try to force a response out of him with crafty words and wily questions, and always told him that they understood how he was feeling. Will had wanted to laugh hysterically those times and tell them that they didn't have any idea about what he felt. His relationship with psychiatrists and psychologists in general had remained uneasy since then. 

That left Will here: an FBI trainee using his overactive imagination that both helped catch bad guys and left him with the deeply unsettling question of where his thoughts ended and another person's began. 

With a deep breath, Will cleared his mind. He walked closer to the bed and came to a still just a foot or so away. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.

**The pendulum swung.**

_Will exhaled. He kicked the door shut behind him as he dragged the woman's unconscious body across the carpeted floor._

_"I have drugged Miss Johnson, rendering her unconscious. I throw her onto the bed and use a knife to cut her dress off._

_I lock the door to the motel room and close all of the curtains. I do not want to be disturbed._

_I place my knife down on the bedside table and begin to undress._

_This is my design."_

**The pendulum swung.**

_Will's head swerved around at the sound of the bed creaking. Miss Johnson was now running for the door. Her sedative must have worn off faster than he had planned._

_"I chase Miss Johnson and slam her into the door. Her head hits the wood with a hard thump, leaving her bleeding. But she shoves me, her nails digging into my skin hard enough to draw blood as I am knocked into the dresser._

_I am infuriated that she would try to attack me. This is not her place. She is filth, a miscreant, a sinner. She is not deserving of life._

_I grab her once more and twist her neck roughly. I throw her onto the bed and grab my knife._

_This is my design."_

**The pendulum swung.**

_Will was atop the corpse, snarling angrily at her actions. He tightened his grip on his knife._

_"Miss Johnson has disrupted my plan but I must continue. I am angry as I force myself onto Miss Johnson. One final act of humiliation to disgrace her and assert my power over her._

_I drag my knife along her torso, hands shaking with the force of my wrath. I am cleansing the world of her evil._

_I remove her organs from the wound, crushing them between my hands as I throw them onto her belly._ All _of her will be judged._

_This is my design."_

**The pendulum swung.**

Will came back to the moment with a shudder, nausea forcing him to clench his jaws. He was sweating despite the cold, body shivering and hot as he stiffly made his way to the door, turning the knob with shaking hands.

"Well?" Jack asked as soon he Will opened the door, entering the room once more and looking around. He was followed by serveral others, determined to get back to work.

"This - this girl put up a fight." Will swallowed heavily, eyes flickering back to the body. "There's blood under her fingernails. She has a head injury from where he hit it off the door. She made him angry. Angry enough to break his usual pattern - he snapped her neck. The other victims died when he stabbed them. Everything else took place post-mortem after he broke her neck."

"How do you know that? Forensics haven't even finished their report." A nearby agent asked, lowering his camera in bewilderment.

"How does this help us catch him?" Jack asked Will, ignoring the agent's question and instead staring at the trainee with a determined look in his eye.

"He's meticulous and she broke his pattern. She fought back. He's angry. She challenged him. He's gonna kill again. Soon.   
He's had a couple hours - he might have killed again already." Will explained, voice monotonous as his mind was unwillingly flooded with livid thoughts that did not belong to him. "I suggest searching all motels within a fifty mile radius. Also any areas known for prostitution around the city. Look for a man, early thirties, he might have scratches on his arms or face, he might also be walking with a limp. He can't have gone far - she enraged him so much that he wants to, _needs_ to assert himself. The next murder is gonna be ruthless."

There was a tense moment of silence, officers staring at Will with wide eyes or raised eyebrows. The moment was interrupted when Jack suddenly clapped his hands together with a bark of, "you heard the man! Let's go! I want every area within a fifty mile radius secured and motels searched!"

Agents scrambled to the door and Will followed Jack out of the room with them, leaning on a fence as Jack barked orders into his radio, yelling at officers and pointing wildly in various directions.

For once, Will savoured the winter air as it cooled his burning skin. He shifted uncomfortably, adjusting the sweat-dampened collar of his shirt and trying to force down the wave of nausea that was slowly making its way up his throat. He felt hazy, his mind spinning and making him feel dizzy. He wanted out of there - away from the crowds and the people and the prying eyes. 

"You alright, Will?" Beverly asked, coming to a stop beside him and offering him a paper cup full of coffee. "You look a little pale."

"Yeah, it's just - I can go home now, right?" Will asked, forcing down another wave of nausea.

"Yes, you can. Jack's leading the search party headed north so we can take the SUV back to Virginia." Beverly offered, downing the last dredges of her coffee with a wrinkle of her nose.

"Don't you have to work? I can take the train back. Or a bus." Will shrugged but Beverly shook her head.

"Nah, Price and Zeller are gonna finish up here. The body is being sent back to the labs as we speak so I'm gonna get a headstart on the post-mortem examination." Beverly explained, producing the car keys from her pocket with a jingle. "Ready to go?" 

Will nodded.

  
-

  
They were almost two hours into their drive home when Jack called them. Will had been drifting off to sleep, head resting against the cold glass of the window and Beverly humming along to quiet music playing from the radio. 

"You were right, Will." Jack's voice was muffled over the speaker, forcing Beverly to turn down the volume on the radio. "He killed again - a woman named Carol Rutherford was found at a motel called Gary's Inn. We found our killer two miles north of it. His name was Damien Jenkins."

"Was?" Will echoed, a sudden numbness overtaking him. 

"He attacked agents with the knife he had been using. He was shot down." Jack explained. "DNA confirmed he was the Butcher. Listen, I need you both in the lab today at five. Beverly, we got three bodies that need exmained. Will, I'll need you to write a report."

"Understood. We'll see you then, chief." Beverly gave a single nod that Jack could not see, winking at Will when Jack sighed before hanging up. Will allowed a small smile and turned his head to the window. 

It was bright out now, the sky a cloudy mix of greys that promised heavy rain later in the day. Will had a single lecture at twelve and then he had to get the train from Virginia to Baltimore on top of meeting with Jack. However, he could feel the compelling pull of sleep and wanted nothing more than to go to bed and stay there for as long as he could. He looked out the window once more and heaved a small sigh. He had a long day ahead.

"So how do you do it?" Beverly voice cut across his thoughts like a whip.

"Do what?" Will asked, trying to organise his mind as he turned to face her.

Beverly let out a puff of air through pursed lips and shrugged, "whatever it is that you do, I guess. I mean, how did you know that she fought him? It's like your plucking theories out of thin air and they're just somehow... right."

"The evidence proves them right." Will replied. "It's all about taking what is given to you and arranging it in a way that makes sense, that the points connect." Beverly still looked confused, eyebrows drawn together and lips pursed. Will stifled a sigh. "There was a lot of evidence to suggest there was a fight - Tamira Johnson's nails were chipped, there was dried blood on the door, dust patterns on the floor show that the dresser had been moved rather roughly, and her neck had been snapped."

"Okay," Beverly said slowly, "but how did that equate to a fight?"

"It's all to do with pattern. The Butcher wasn't an intelligent psychopath. He had a system - it was his design. His M.O. was very straightforward: he kidnapped the women, drugged them, raped them and _then_ he murdered and disemboweled them. He brought them to a motel room under an alias and didn't touch anything in the room. In every crime scene before this he was careful - he didn't leave any useful evidence behind. Tamira Johnson, however, distrupted that pattern and that angered him enough to kill again. Psychopaths tend to have an superiority complex."

Beverly still looked confused.

"You still don't get it, do you?" Will asked quietly. No one ever did seem to truly understand it, understand _him_.

"No, not really," Beverly admitted with an almost apologetic smile, "but you do, and I suppose that's all that matters in the end."

Will only gave her a feeble smile and went back to gazing out the window.

  
-

  
By the time they had arrived back at Quantico, Will had missed his lecture at noon and instead he lay in his dorm, curled up under the blankets and sleeping uneasily, tossing and turning beneath the sheets.

When Beverly had dropped him off at his dorm building, the first thing Will did upon reaching his room was to throw himself to his knees on the bathroom floor and heave up the contents of his stomach into the toilet - hours of slow-building nausea finally making its appearance. He had stripped down to his boxers and shirt and collapsed onto his bed in a heap, yanking his blankets around himself and over his head.

Will felt exhausted, perhaps even more so than before, when his alarm rang loudly from his bedside table. Groaning and grumbling, he stumbled out of bed into the shower before dressing himself and making his way to Jack's office.

It was still cold out as he trudged through the rain, shrugging his jacket tighter around himself and tugging his hood closer to face to stave off the chilling wind and icy rain. He reached Jack's office a shivering mess, shrugging out of his damp jacket and throwing it over the back of his chair as he sat down to face Jack.

"Seven weeks." Jack began without any preamble, leaning back in his chair and assessing Will the way he had done during their first meeting. "Seven weeks we've been working on this case. You solved it in less than a three days."

Will wasn't sure where the conversation was going. Jack was like that at times, too caught up in his own thoughts. 

"I've never seen anything like it. You have a gift, Will." Jack leaned forward on his desk, all business, and steepled his fingers together. "I think you'd be a great asset to the team. That's why I would like to offer you a permanent position as a Special Investigator."

"Special Investigator? That sounds made up." Will replied flatly, raising an eyebrow when Jack avoided his eyes for once.

"It's not an official position, no, but it's the only way we can get the approval we need to bring a trainee out into the field." Jack explained. "We need you, Will. What you did today was something else. I've never seen anything like it."

"What about my classes at the Academy? My training?" Will asked.

"You'd only be assisting in our more difficult cases - it wouldn't be for every single one." Jack promised, eyebrow raised and waiting on Will's confirmation. 

Will debated turning it down. The crime scene today had shaken him to his very core. However, perhaps that was due to the novelty of it. Will had never immersed himself into another person's thoughts in the company of others, never even at an actual crime scene - he usually recreated the scene based on what he had read in files and books in the comfort of his own solitude. 

"Well?" Jack prodded.

Will agreed.

  
-

  
The conductor of the train gave Will a familiar smile when he came to check his ticket, offering pleasant small talk about the weather as he scanned the plastic card. Will thanked him as he departed further down the train, calling for passengers to have their tickets ready for inspection.

Pocketing his card, Will shifted into a more comfortable position in his seat, using his jacket to pillow his head against the window. He had been drifting in and out of consciousness the entire journey, startling awake when his dreams became too intense.

His most recent dream involved the Streetlight Butcher. Will had been chasing him through that same forest that seemed to occupy all of his dreams, stumbling over fallen branches and getting scratched by sharp twigs. The Butcher had ran for what felt like hours until Will found himself in the clearing again, with shadows dancing around him in the trees, taunting him. Hannibal had appeared to him once again - the man had become a focal point for all of Will's dreams lately. Always there, mocking him.

Will had never told Hannibal that, of course. In fact, he had never really told Hannibal anything about himself, save for his name and a few oddities about himself that the former psychiatrist immediately picked up on. Other than that, Will had kept it strictly professional despite Hannibal's attempts to draw answers out of him. However, the older man was clever, never revealing anything about himself in turn. Will could imagine how easy it had been for him to weave himself through society without ever being caught or arousing suspicion. He was charming, creative, capable - what Will knew about Hannibal was all secondary information. He had learned very little about the man from his own mouth. Maybe that was why he struggled to understand him so much. 

The train came to its final stop in the Baltimore station and Will joined the other passengers as they made their way onto the platform. His last dream had shaken him, leaving him pale and in a cold sweat that the winter night didn't help. When he arrived at the Baltimore State Hospital, he was soaked, shivering and the nausea he had felt earlier in the day was making a reappearance.

"Ah, Mr. Graham, back again so soon?" Arthur's voice sounded from behind his computer screen before his head appeared over the top of it, his eyebrow raised and a slight smile on his lips.

"It would seem so." Will replied evenly, not particularly in the mood to talk. As Will preferred to visit the hospital at night, he had come to know Arthur almost like an acquaintance. He was still the same dry, bored worker that Will had met on his second visit but always made the effort to talk to Will. Will figured that the man realised that Will was really the only person he could talk to during his shift, what with him being trapped behind a desk for several hours and under Chilton's constant surveillance.

"Let me guess - here to see Hannibal Lecter?" Arthur asked. He assessed Will with slightly narrowed eyes, prying and inquisitive, and asked, "why are you so invested in Lecter's profile? Most people that meet him never wanna come back."

"Hannibal Lecter is a particularly difficult profile and an even more difficult man." Will replied flatly. 

"Oh yes, I'm very aware." Arthur nodded slowly, an amused smirk making its way on to his face.

"Then you can imagine how difficult it is to get answers out of him. He doesn't exactly make it easy." Will said, adjusting his bag over his shoulder before making his way to the door of the maximum security wing. Arthur's chuckle followed him across the room before he heard the blare of the alarm and he pulled open the door.

"Chilton's here, by the way. He's working late." Arthur warned him with another chuckle and Will stifled his sigh. "Barney is too."

Will thanked him before he left the reception, walked down the long corridor that led to the maximum security wing. Barney answered with a welcoming smile when he knocked on the door, gesturing for him to come inside the small security office.

"Arthur said you were coming." Barney informed him, taking Will's jacket from him and hanging it up on the nearby rack. "I've put a chair out for you. Let me know if you need anything."

Will nodded as he was ushered into the corridor and offered Barney a weak smile over his shoulder that the older man returned warmly. Will liked Barney - especially compared to the deputy head oderly, Adrian. Adrian liked to poke fun at Will when he was there, always asking him questions and introducing him to the other orderlies. He wasn't cruel or mean-spirited, just overly-friendly. Barney was more forthright and allowed Will to get on with his work.

The walk down the familiar corridor seemed to last forever and with every step he took he felt as though the wall at the very end of the corridor moved further away. Will felt exposed, vulnerable. The inmates thoughts were loud, violent and Will felt more susceptible to them at that moment after his emotionally exhausting and physically tiring day. By the time he reached Hannibal's cell, he was paler than before and his legs felt like jelly as he sat down before him.

Hannibal was lying across his bed, ankles crosssed at the bottom and one arm folded behind his head. His hand, resting leisurely on his stomach, was holding a book titled _La Vita Nuova_. Will recognised it as the work of Dante Alighieri. He stared at Hannibal for several seconds before the other man even acknowledged him.

"Good evening, Will." Hannibal greeted him politely, lowering his book to give him a courteous smile.

"Dr. Lecter." Will replied with a nod, retrieving his file from his bag before dropping it down beside his feet.

"Well, I do believe that congratulations are in order, Will," Hannibal gave him another polite smile, leaving Will momentarily confused before he added teasingly, "or, shall I say, Special Agent Graham." Will rolled his eyes at that. It earned him a reprimanding tut from other man, "now, now, William, none of that."

"Thank you, Dr. Lecter." Will replied flatly. He could hear mumbling and whispering from the cells around them and did his best to ignore them. He watched as Hannibal set his book aside and rose from his bed to stand in front of the partition.

"Aren't you proud of your achievement?" Hannibal asked, tilting his head ever so slightly, trying to catch Will's avoiding eye. "I'm proud of you, Will."

"Are these all your drawings, Doctor?" Will asked instead of answering him, ignoring the warmth that spread through him at the older man's words. He could recall the few times in his life anyone had ever said them to him, mostly his father during one of his extremely rare emotionally drunken stupors. 

"Ah," Hannibal followed Will's gaze into his cell. In his last two visits, Hannibal's cell had been bare, devoid of any personal touch. Now, however, the walls were lined with pages that contained various sketches, ranging from buildings and cities to drawings of different people. "That is the Duomo seen from the Belvedere." Hannibal explained, regarding the sketch with a fond look. "You know Florence?"

"You drew all these from my last visit?" Will asked, curiousity getting the better of him as he traced his eyes over the charcoal drawings.

"No." Hannibal replied, a cold smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. It put Will on edge when the man turned to regard him fully, much closer to the partition that Will remembered him being. "A restoration of privileges, if you will."

"What did you do to lose your privileges?" Will asked, standing from his seat to take a closer look at Hannibal's work. He knew he would be chastised later by Chilton for standing so close to the glass. 

"Frederick was less than delighted, shall we say, with a little experiment of mine with a fellow inmate." Hannibal explained while he exmained his nails, almost bored, as if he were discussing the weather outside and not the welfare of another human being. The lack of emotion in his voice was unnerving, the vacant look in his eyes unsettling enough to send a chill down Will's spine. 

"Experiment?" Will repeated, turning his head to meet Hannibal's eyes. The man was leaning against the glass, arms folded over his chest and one ankle crossed over the other - the embodiment of ease. A smile, one that very much did not meet Hannibal's eyes, adorned his face. The expression was terrifying. 

Hannibal hummed. "A particularly rude inmate. He is constantly being tranferred between wings for his behaviour." 

Will felt his nausea like a crashing wave and he took a deep breath through his nose, steadying himself.

"You seem quite distracted today." Hannibal commented, clinical eyes darting between Will's pale face and lightly trembling hands. "Are you ill?"

"No, I'm not sick. I just..." Will thought for a moment. Hannibal already knew about his promotion. "I was at a crime scene today."

"Ah, yes, Barney tells me that the Streetlight Butcher was cornered and killed just this morning." Hannibal's eyes glinted as he stared at Will, "you were on the case, I assume? Was that where you played the role of Special Agent?"

"Yes." Will said slowly, nodding. "I profiled his last kill - well, second last kill. He killed again a few hours later before he was stopped by FBI agents."

"Tell me about this killer, about his thoughts." Hannibal suggested, his body relaxed and receptive. He was willing to listen. Will frowned. It would put them off track but Hannibal was a master at the skill of derailment and was often able to coax Will into various conversations unrelated to his own profile and the task at hand.

It was an unusual relationship they had. They would talk for hours about philosophy and life but never actually divulged anything personal to one another - at least not directly. But Will could connect the dots, could read the hidden meanings behind Hannibal's words. It was unusual, yes, that they were so different and yet got along as well as they did. Will was a working class, former cop from Louisiana whereas Hannibal was an upper class socialite with a history of medicine and surgery. Hannibal enjoyed the finer things in life - art, music, cuisine - whereas Will led a simplistic life, sticking to his roots and reveling what he knew. It was one of the things that made Hannibal a mystery to Will - how he could maintain his regal composure and sense of self while still being what he was. It perplexed him.

"There's nothing special about him." Will shrugged, not in the mood to talk about it, to think it over and let it consume his thoughts and dreams as it had done all day. "It was pretty easy to figure out. He was a serial rapist and murderer, too compulsive and arrogant for his own good. He got careless. He got caught."

" _Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall_." Hannibal quoted, looking highly amused. "You are an extremely perceptive young man, Will."

"Tell me something I don't know." Will grumbled, looking down at his file as Hannibal tried to catch his eye.

"I think you feel responsible for his death." 

"What?" Will snapped, so sudden that his pen flew out of his hand and hit the glass with a sharp clack. "I don't feel responsible for his death. He tried to attack armed FBI agents with a knife. Hasn't anyone ever told you to never bring a knife to gun fight, doctor?"

Will's tone was biting and Hannibal looked satisfied to have earned a reaction from him. He was quick to engage in the conversation now that he had Will's full attention, unwilling to give the younger man time to reel himself in.

"You were the one that lead them to this Streetlight Butcher, were you not?" Hannibal asked, tilting his head as he peered at Will with curious eyes.

"How do you know that?" Will asked instead, eyes narrowing.

"You told me." Hannibal replied, smiling as if it were obvious.

"When?" 

"Just now." 

Will resisted the powerful urge to sigh, annoyed at himself for letting Hannibal play him like that. Hannibal looked immensely pleased with himself.

"Why don't you tell me what you think of him, Dr. Lecter? Please, dazzle me with your insight." Will said flatly, challenging.

"I'm afraid my knowledge of our killer is much more limited than yours." Hannibal replied, "my only source of news is the paper Barney gives me each morning."

"Try your best." Will ordered him and Hannibal regarded him with an indecipherable look.

"He was young, likely a Summerville local, employed as his murders were committed on weekends, had a basic understanding of human anatomy - a butcher or a meat factory worker perhaps, his victim pattern indicates a hatred of women and a superiority over them - a behaviour learned in a fundamental, traditionalist home. That would also explain why he targeted prostitutes. His brutality was learned through years of witnessing abuse and perhaps being a victim of it himself." Hannibal theorized, words flowing with ease. "He attacks those he deems inferior to him because he himself fears being put in that position. A prideful man is always so busy looking down on others because he fears what he will see if he looks up."

"So you're saying that his driving motivation is fear?" Will asked flatly. However, on the inside his heart was pummeling against his ribcage painfully. As Hannibal had been speaking, Will had experienced a daunting thought that perhaps Hannibal understood him. He had made similar connections to Will's own, regarded the killer with the same disinterest that Will did. It would just be Will's luck that the only person that might have had even the slightest inkling of how his mind work was a serial killer locked in a maximum security prison. And yet, there was a part of Will - a small, tiny part of himself that he stamped down viciously in his mind - that was almost exhilarated. A connection, someone that would understand.

"Isn't fear the driving motivation for most of humanity?" Hannibal asked, nonchalant with a slight shrug of his shoulders. "Fear of failure, fear of succumbing to our weaknesses, fear of death."

"I don't think it was fear that motivated you." Will said, standing from his seat as to collect the pen he had accidentally thrown at the glass. "You liked it." 

"I took a certain amount of pleasure in it, yes." Hannibal's movements imitated Will's, slowly following the younger man along the partition until they were face to face through the glass.

"Pleasure as in..." Will trailed off, staring at his own reflection 

Hannibal was smiling again. A cold, cruel smile. "Pleasure as in the kind you feel when you have put an end to something particularly irritating." 

It happened all of a sudden. Will was unable to do anything but gaze into Hannibal's eyes, too close to the glass and yet not close enough. A deafening buzz fell on Will's ears, reminding him of the static of an old radio, muffled and faint whispering in his mind, warning him to be careful. Hannibal's smile morphed into something predatory and Will felt his heart rate pick up, thudding painfully against his chest as antlers, large and spindly, slowly extended from Hannibal's head. Will couldn't breathe, the darkness closing in on him, surrounding him, suffocating him. 

Hannibal was moving out of his reach, backing away from him and stepping into the darkness that was surrounding them. Will was hyperventilating, feeling lost. Everything was dark. He was vaguely aware of a deep, soothing voice calling out to him and a steady pair of warm hand on his shoulders. He could hear shouting, yelling, rattling cell bars. The familiar voice was guiding him, leading him away from the darkness and back into reality. The darkness was fading and Will was slowly coming to his senses. 

It was chaos. He could see Barney's large figure in front of him, could feel his hands grounding him to the present. He could hear Chilton yelling at Hannibal, demanding to know what he had done. The prisoners had gone wild in their cells at the sudden rush of activity, slamming themselves against the metal bars and yelling. However, Hannibal's voice cut clear above the rest of them, calm as it was firm, grounding Will better than anything else. 

"Will, are you okay?" Hannibal asked him, ignoring Chilton's line of questioning and stepping closer to the partition. He didn't look concerned, instead his eyes seemed rather curious as Will allowed them to meet his own.

"Fine." Will lied as Barney released his grip on his shoulders, only to place a cool hand on Will's forehead and then his cheek. "What happened?" 

"Something we're all interested in." Chilton replied icily, throwing a threatening glare at Hannibal. "Need I remind you, Hannibal, that Mason is still in the medical ward after your last little stunt?" Hannibal continued to ignore the man.

"One minute you were talking to Hannibal and the next you were frozen, shaking uncontrollably." Barney explained gently to him, guiding him carefully to his seat before kneeling down beside him. "You kept saying things but they didn't make any sense. Do you have a history of seizures, Will? Perhaps a family history?" 

"I don't think so." Will replied weakly, his hands trembling in his lap. The more he calmed from his unexpected episode, the more embarrassment he felt with each passing moment. He could feel the heat crawling up his neck, his ears burning. He refused to meet anybody's eyes. 

"Have you been sleeping at night, Will?" Hannibal asked him, kneeling down so that their faces were level with one another. His voice was clinincal. Will shook his head slowly. "Sleep deprivation is the second most common trigger of seizures." Hannibal said, as if that settled the matter. 

"Are you telling me, Mr. Graham, that this episode had nothing to do with Hannibal?" Chilton asked, suspicion colouring his tone. He was watching him through narrowed eyes when Will shook his head again.

"N - no. I don't know what happened. I think Dr. Lecter is right, though." Will replied quietly, "I haven't been sleeping great lately."

"I see." Chilton said flatly, still not convinced, as if trying to figure out what reason Will had to defend Hannibal. 

"I think it would be best if Will were to go home and get some rest." Hannibal suggested, standing up from his kneeling position and brushing his uniform.

That was the last thing Will wanted to do. He had been so close to unveiling a part of Hannibal. He knew, of course, that he would have no choice but to go. Hannibal would not be so forthcoming with Chilton keeping an eye on them. Will found a small victory in that as he gathered his belongings, like their own personal game of tormenting Chilton. Will hid an amused smile as he bent down to throw his book into his bag, one that he was sure Hannibal saw from where he was lying across his bed.

"Goodnight, Will." Hannibal's voice echoed down the corridor as soon as the doorway opened, light and airy. Will glanced back for a moment, ignoring the way Chilton watched him with cynical eyes. 

"Goodnight, Dr. Lecter."

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Hannibal fic and I wanted to write one that really explores both of their characters bc it's something that really interests me and so I decided that i might as well do it lmao
> 
> Anyways, hope you enjoyed!


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